Understanding Of Judaism Research Articles

Hitler's Favorite Jew: The Enigma of Otto Weininger by Allan Janik

Reviewed by: Hitler's Favorite Jew: The Enigma of Otto Weininger by Allan Janik Vincent Kling Janik, Allan. Hitler's Favorite Jew: The Enigma of Otto Weininger. New York: Simply Charly, 2021. 191 pp. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Kraus, Heimito von Doderer, Hermann Broch, Arnold Schoenberg, Elias Canetti, and numerous others in Austria; August Strindberg, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Italo Svevo elsewhere—these are only a handful of the artists profoundly influenced by Otto Weininger, who nonetheless is still often dismissed as a self-hating Jewish anti-Semite, a venomous misogynist, and a generally unbalanced fanatic. Weininger's suicide at an early age contributed further to the image of a disturbed crackpot trading in dubious, half-baked philosophical and psychological concepts of his own eccentric devising. In his lucid and helpful new study, Allan Janik confronts these distortions head-on, pointing out that mangled editions and clumsy translations have long fostered misunderstanding of the actual work, much of which was dismissed without even being read anyway, since "scholars" had already made their minds up that Weininger need not, indeed could not, be taken seriously. As Janik notes, goodwill is often lacking, especially to reconstruct the then-current state of the disciplines on which Weininger drew. It takes time and effort to clear away impeding misconceptions, and indeed, "We have to work hard to re-contextualize Weininger" (xiv), who is victimized by the prevalent error of being judged according to today's knowledge and insights, not within the framework of his own time. Janik succeeds so well here, especially in linking Weininger to his culture [End Page 95] at large, that his study is likely to remain definitive. Although in a different context, Martin Mosebach offers the helpful reminder that Vienna around 1900 was a hotbed of great and near-great minds devising new systems of order, new modes of understanding, new means of expression, new ways of seeing and hearing. Janik shows that Weininger was a full participant in these many-sided explorations and not the lone wolf or outlier he is made out to be. (Again, how could so many creative and analytical minds have been so fascinated by Weininger unless he were embodying currents and streams of thought in many disciplines?) For instance, Janik demonstrates Weininger's full familiarity with psychoanalytic thought, knowledgeably participating in the prevailing discourse, aware that the future of the discipline lay with Freud (15–16). Weininger occupied a position at the center of philosophical thought, too, as a member of the Philosophical Society, regularly meeting with Ernst Mach, Ludwig Boltzmann, Sigmund Exner, and Friedrich Jodl, among others (11–14), and his presentations at the Viennese Sociological Society, even though he was still an adolescent, were greeted with esteem by specialists (12). Only in retrospect does the negative view of Weininger seem to have arisen; in his own day, and for a good many years after his death, he was regarded as a first-rate, formidable intellectual. Another area of unfair disparagement is the glibly cited snap judgment that Weininger was a Jew filled with Jewish self-hatred and therefore not to be taken seriously on the basis of purported psychological imbalance. Janik skillfully challenges this irresponsible distortion in his excellent chapter on "Judaism and Anti-Semitism" (93–109), demonstrating that Weininger's views were shaped by Kant's moral thought, not by personal dimensions; he counters false assessments by citing Weininger's own understanding of Judaism (94–96) and even more by offering a nuanced discussion of the topic as treated in Sex and Character based on Peter Pulzer's The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (99–104). The four varieties of anti-Semitism Pulzer outlines are powerful and apt guides for understanding the subtlety and depth of Weininger's arguments. Three chapters devoted to Sex and Character again present Weininger's thought against the backdrop of his culture and show how comprehensively that major work amalgamated and organized many areas of contemporary thought. The first of those chapters (38–56) is uniquely excellent in its discussion of "Early Sexology and the Theory of Plasms." No other treatment [End Page 96] of the matter is this lucid; Janik has...

Gandhi’s View on Judaism and Zionism in Light of an Interreligious Theology

This article describes Gandhi’s view on Judaism and Zionism and places it in the framework of an interreligious theology. In such a theology, the notion of “trans-difference” appreciates the differences between cultures and religions with the aim of building bridges between them. It is argued that Gandhi’s understanding of Judaism was limited, mainly because he looked at Judaism through Christian lenses. He reduced Judaism to a religion without considering its peoplehood dimension. This reduction, together with his political endeavors in favor of the Hindu–Muslim unity and with his advice of satyagraha to the Jews in the 1930s determined his view on Zionism. Notwithstanding Gandhi’s problematic views on Judaism and Zionism, his satyagraha opens a wide-open window to possibilities and challenges in the Near East. In the spirit of an interreligious theology, bridges are built between Gandhi’s satyagraha and Jewish transformational dialogical thinking.

How to Do Things with Things: Craft at the Edge of Buber’s Philosophical Anthropology

Abstract This article offers an alternative reading of Martin Buber (1878–1956), one guided by his writings on craft and artistic creation. Rather than view Buber as a philosopher of dialogue, it views him as a philosopher of relationships, including relationships to nonhuman things. His writings on craft and artistic creation are taken to exemplify these nonhuman relationships. After sketching out the general structure of Buber’s thought, and the role that nonhuman relationships play in it, this article traces a trajectory through Buber’s work, showing the ever-increasing importance of these relationships through an analysis of his treatments of art and craft. It ends with an analysis of his late anthropological work on craft and images, which demonstrates that this was a longstanding, if not central, concern of Buber’s that guided not only his treatment of material things, but his understanding of Judaism as well.

On King's <em>The Beauty of Judaism on Film</em>

On King's The Beauty of Judaism on Film David B. Levy (bio) The Beauty of Judaism on Film. By Mike King. London: Stochastic Press, 2017. 216 pp., ISBN 978-0995648029 (pb), US $14.00. Mike King's The Beauty of Judaism on Film offers a thoughtful, insightful, and sensitive contribution to film studies, Jewish studies, cultural studies, philosophy, and religious studies. It lends itself superbly as a text for a course on Judaism in film, as a film-club guide, or as an introduction for anyone seeking a better understanding of Judaism. It can serve as a first—but not last—step in a journey of appreciating, respecting, and learning about but also from the holiness of Judaism. King's thesis is that the inner drama of Judaism is represented well by the dynamics of narrative cinema. In examining a wide range of both historical and contemporary films, King demonstrates that great insight and nuanced cinematic art can be found in films representing and exploring the cultural and religious aspects of Judaism. As King phrases it in his typically articulate manner, cinema offers an opening to "new religious vistas" (190), which can be explored by the unique nature of the medium. Like an entranceway to a Borgesian mystical maze or a Kafkaesque link to the "castle world," the book sends the novice reader on an introductory journey through various worlds of Judaism. Yet King's exegesis gives the reader a glimpse not into what Mordecai Kaplan in Judaism as a Civilization called the culture of Judaism but rather into the notion of Judaism as a religion. This is not merely a sociological perspective of how Jews [End Page 116] became white folks or what Nathan Abrams describes as the normalization of the Jew as a typical American, free of the past negative stereotypes of the "Jew as thief" or the "Jew as liar." King's book fills a void that Abrams identifies in his The New Jew in Film: "It is surprising to note that to date not much work has been done on Judaism, overshadowed by a tendency to focus on the image of the Jew/ess or on the Holocaust in film."1 Although this book can be enjoyed by lay readers and academics alike, King draws from the inspiring writing of foundational scholars such as Gershom Scholem, Martin Buber, and Milton Steinberg. King uses examples from popular cinema that form the structure of the book, which is organized thematically. King recognizes the great importance of written sacred texts as sources in Judaism (3), which is part of Elliot Gertel's critique of the limits of the moving image.2 However King also argues against Michael Medved's assertion that film is inadequate to depict Judaism respectfully and factually.3 The chapters of King's book are organized into nine major, creatively conceived categories, including extended examinations of mystical Judaism, musical Judaism, Holocaust Judaism, and family Judaism. Forty films have been chosen and classified within these rubrics to illustrate the beauty of Judaism. For example, mystical film texts studied in the book include Pi (Darren Aronofsky, USA, 1998), Bee Season (Scott McGehee, David Siegel, USA, 2005), and A Stranger Among Us (Sidney Lumet, USA, 1992). Musical film texts include Yentl (Barbra Streisand, UK, USA, 1984), Fiddler on the Roof (Norman Jewison, USA, 1971), and two of the four produced film versions of The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, USA, 1927; and Richard Fleischer, USA, 1980). Holocaust Judaism texts include The Believer (Henry Bean, USA, 2001), The Diary of Anne Frank (George Stevens, USA, 1959), Left Luggage (Jeroen Krabbé, Netherlands, 1998), The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet, USA, 1964), The Quarrel (Eli Cohen, Canada, 1991), and the Devil's Arithmetic (Donna Deitch, USA, 1999). In the appendix King rates the ten best films with plot summaries to aid the reader. King's analytic sharpness shines when he describes the following three main clusters of filmmaking: (1) Hasidic Jews in New York, (2) Haredi or ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem, and (3) shtetl Jews from Eastern Europe. One film, however, is about Sephardic Jews, and another takes place in North Africa. King acknowledges that the scope of his project is limited to...

Goethe and Judaism: The Troubled Inheritance of Modern Literature by Karin Schutjer

Reviewed by: Goethe and Judaism: The Troubled Inheritance of Modern Literature by Karin Schutjer Jonathan M. Hess Karin Schutjer. Goethe and Judaism: The Troubled Inheritance of Modern Literature. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2015. 264 pp. Schutjer's monograph tackles a topic that has been a subject of debate for more than a century and puts forth a powerful, original, and sophisticated argument grounded in both careful, conscientious close readings of texts by Goethe [End Page 293] and a deep sense of historical context. Over the decades, numerous scholars have cataloged, categorized, and studied Goethe's various statements on Jews and Judaism, typically evaluating them in biographical terms to argue whether Goethe was anti-Semitic or philo-Semitic. Schutjer certainly integrates biographical approaches into her study, but she steers clear of the pitfalls of linking Goethe to later forms of anti- and philo-Semitism or studying Goethe in the shadow of the Holocaust. Indeed, her study is the antithesis of the sort of scholarship that cherry-picks statements to make a polemical case about Goethe's relation to Jews and Judaism. Schutjer studies the dynamic and systematic role that reflections on Judaism played in both Goethe's worldview and his massive literary oeuvre, laying bare the central role that Goethe's ideas about Judaism played in his work as a whole. Rather than simply indicting Goethe for his anti-Jewish views (he was, among other things, a clear opponent of Jewish emancipation) or seeking to acquit him of prejudice by stressing his long-standing interests in the Hebrew Bible, Schutjer explores how Goethe's conception of the modern world was inextricable from his conception of Judaism. The contradictory elements in his comments on Jews and Judaism, in other words, are certainly important in their own right, but they also shed light on major tensions in Goethe's own thinking more generally. Goethe finds in Judaism—or, rather, as Schutjer demonstrates, his own, at times idiosyncratic, understanding of Judaism—an attractive, distinctly modern posture toward the world that he deems more attractive than that of Christianity. Yet Goethe also engages in a struggle with Judaism precisely because he finds so much affinity with it, casting Judaism as an object of competition, a force that must be cleared from the playing field to make way for his own, Goethean vision of modernity. Approaching Goethe in this way, Schutjer is able to make sense of Goethe's pro-Jewish tendencies as well as the elements in his oeuvre that seem anti-Semitic, making clear how Goethe could oppose political emancipation for his Jewish contemporaries at the same time as he celebrated Judaism—particularly the Hebrew Bible—for a type of freedom and heterodoxy he contrasted with Christianity. Goethe found himself attracted to the Jewish ban on images for its opposition to dogmatic metaphysics; he discovered in the Hebrew scriptures a type of diasporic nationhood and peoplehood linked to a book rather than a state that he deemed particularly relevant for modern Germany; and perhaps more than anything else, he was fascinated by Judaism's activism and striving focused on the immanent, historical world. In this context, Schutjer does not just concern herself with Goethe's worldview. Her analysis cuts to the heart of Goethe's literary work, showing how all these elements of his fascination with Judaism come together in the topos of "wandering." Through exemplary discussions of major and minor works by Goethe, Schutjer demonstrates that Goethe's encounter with the Hebrew Bible, from his youth on, decisively shaped not just the topos of wandering but his entire literary program. This is a new and bold argument, and it is one that Schutjer formulates with eloquence and elegance. Her work is extremely well grounded in Goethe scholarship, as one would expect. It also draws on a deep familiarity with scholarship on the Hebrew Bible and biblical criticism as well as the text of the Bible itself. When Schutjer argues, for instance, that the peculiar form and texture of the Hebrew Bible, and Genesis in particular, provided an ongoing source of fascination and inspiration for Goethe's experimental literary style, she makes this claim with a deep literary appreciation of Goethe's work...

Introduction: Jewish American Material Culture

Introduction:Jewish American Material Culture Laura A. Leibman (bio) A family of six sits around a table ready to start a festive meal. Bubbe and Zayde are there. The cloth is white, the plates are blue, and the family has prepared perfectly formed latkes and challah to start the meal. A silver Hanukiah with candles ablaze stands close—but not too close—to the carefully wrapped gifts. With kippot on their heads, Zayde holds a siddur and Abba a Kiddush cup. A young boy dances in his chair, clasping a dreidel. Bubbe holds a gift. Ima flits between the festivities and the kitchen, spoon in hand. Music plays in the background, and the family's dog waits poised by the refrigerator. This family might seem like many other Jewish families across America during the festival of Hanukkah, if not for the fact that the family members are so incredibly short and set in their ways. In fact, all of the family members are disturbingly puny—barely two inches tall, to be exact—and they are made of a hard, molded plastic. In an attempt to avoid choking hazards to the children who will play with them, they are bonded to their accessories. Even if you wanted to free Ima from her role as chef, you couldn't, as the spoon follows her wherever she goes. You may have met this family before: they are the "Little People Hanukkah Play Set" made by Fisher Price in an attempt to diversify the company's holiday offerings and capture a Jewish market in the first decade of the twenty-first century.1 Apparently, the play set was not a commercial success: for the last few years, all of the Fisher Price holiday-themed "Little People" have been observing Christian or solidly American holidays, such as Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July. Jewish "Little People" live on only on eBay, in collectors' shops, and on amazon.com at collector's prices. Jewish "Little People" may embody a host of stereotypes, but they aren't cheap. As a type of material culture made explicitly for Jews and depicting Jews performing rites of Judaism as an embodied religion, the Jewish "Little People" set represents the various ways in which American Jewish identity is performed through things. In this special issue of American Jewish History on material culture, the authors explore the ways in which a wide range of everyday objects can enhance our understanding of American Jewish culture and religion. In this introduction to [End Page 115] this special issue, Jewish "Little People" serve as a concrete example of what might be called "material Judaism"—that is, the use of objects of everyday life in Judaism and to create Jewish identity. By exploring things made and used for and by American Jews, scholars in this issue look at how religion is embedded in culture and how a cultural sense of Jewishness has often come to replace a text-centered understanding of Jewish identity. The "Little People Hanukkah Play Set" exemplifies the variety of ways in which objects can embody what it means to be Jewish in American life. In the Fisher Price set, Jewishness is what one wears, eats, plays, and does as much as what one reads. The boy in the set learns about Hanukkah by playing dreidel, but real Jewish children also learn about Judaism by playing with the Fisher Price set and enacting Jewish holidays in their play. Even the plastic siddur is non-textual. As Pierre Bourdieu would eagerly note, Zayde's book reminds us that all books are physical objects read in material contexts. If it is "with the body that people read the 'book' from which they learn their vision of the world,"2 this family's understanding of Judaism is controlled by and channeled through the molded plastic body of Zayde—or, as one eBay seller eloquently calls him, "Fisher Price Little People JEWISH HANUKKAH GRANDPA MAN TORAH BOOK FOR HOLIDAY." Just as we might want to know who wrote a will or a novel, the context in which objects are created adds to our sense of their social function. Knowing who gave Zayde the only book...

Theomorphism and Modern Hebrew Literature's Search for the Divine: Brenner and Shlonsky as a Case Study

Modern Hebrew literature emerged during the 19th century as part of the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, which attempted to break from traditional Judaism and offered a new understanding of Judaism and Jewish life. The “New Hebrew Literature” embraced the rebellious nature of the Haskalah. In this context, it is commonly viewed as a secular literature, which defied Jewish Orthodoxy and rejected the Hebrew God and the Jewish law.1 This perception assumes a dichotomy between religious and secular literature. In the current article I challenge this assumption by suggesting that two central modern Hebrew writers who are commonly perceived as secular, Yosef Hayim Brenner (1881–1921) and Avraham Shlonsky (1900–1973), actually developed a nuanced, original and complex conception of God. An interesting example of these writers’ engagement with the divine is the way they make use of the concept of theomorphism. Theomorphism is the notion that man shares God’s form and image. The idea that man was created in the image of God (be-tzelem elohim) has its roots in the ancient world. In the Jewish and Christian contexts its main source is Gen 1:27.2 Alexander Altman points out that already in the writings of Philo of Alexandria we can find Platonic uses of the term tzelem (eikon) in this sense.3 According to Philo, man is not a direct image of God, but was created according to God’s image, the logos. Philo distinguishes

Sympathy for Mussulmans, Love for Jews: Emilie Loyson-Meriman (1833–1909), Hyacinthe Loyson (1827–1912) and their Efforts towards Interreligious Encounter

In 1905, Madame Hyacinthe Loyson published her travelogueTo Jerusalem through the Lands of Islam among Jews, Christians, and Moslems.In this work, Emilie Loyson, who had some experience as a journalist, described the couple’s travels in the Orient and their encounters with those of other religions, which – unusually for the time – took place on a footing of equality. This essay will first introduce the author, before turning to the religious and interreligious commitment of Emilie Loyson and her husband. Whilst in the 1870s they were engaged in ‘ecumenical’ efforts, over time their interest in interreligious encounter developed. The essay will examine – primarily from Emilie’s point of view – how the couple perceived Islam, and in particular Muslim women, as well as their understanding of Judaism and Eastern Christianity. Finally, it will ask what the couple were able to achieve.

The “Jewish Question” on Both Sides of the Atlantic: Harrington and the Correspondence between Maria Edgeworth and Rachel Mordecai Lazarus

Maria Edgeworth, in her novel Harrington (1817), was one of the first proponents of religious and cultural tolerance of the small but growing Jewish population in Great Britain. Edgeworth suggested that the best method of counteracting the irrational biases reinforced by drama and fiction was by gaining positive, firsthand experience of the lives of individuals within London’s Jewish community. Ironically, however, in depicting Jewish characters, she relied almost entirely on the representations of Jews offered by books. The inspiration for Harrington had been the introductory letter from an American Jew, Rachel Mordecai Lazarus; their twenty-three year correspondence, although postdating the novel’s publication, nevertheless helps to explain the limitations of Harrington and points toward some of the reasons why Edgeworth never moved beyond a text-based understanding of Judaism and, after one foray, never wrote on Jewish subjects again. In their mutual inability to probe Judaism, Edgeworth and Lazarus revealed key facets of the “Jewish Question” at the turn of the nineteenth century. Hampered by her own cultural barriers, like Richard Cumberland before her, and Walter Scott after, Edgeworth adopted a technique that rendered her novel an inaccurate account of Anglo-Jewish life and that disappointed her readers; Harrington finally managed only to depict Jewish assimilation instead of achieving Edgeworth’s initial aim of fostering tolerance for Jewish difference.

Giving Voice to "Torah-True Judaism" in the U.S., 1922-39: Leo Jung and the Legacy of the Rabbinerseminar

In an illuminating essay, Zev Eleff explores “American Orthodoxy’s Lukewarm Embrace of the Hirschian Legacy, 1850-1939.”1 He devotes several paragraphs to Leo Jung (1892–1987), an alumnus of the Rabbinerseminar in Berlin, who served as rabbi at the Jewish Center in Manhattan, starting 1922.2 Eleff notes that Jung was among the few American rabbis who championed the legacy of Samson Raphael Hirsch, in the 1920s and 1930s (and beyond); his sermons and publications often referenced Hirsch’s ideas and his Jewish Library series is “sprinkled with citations from Hirsch’s German works. … ”3 Consistent with these observations, novelist Herman Wouk, who maintained a long and close, personal relationship with Rabbi Jung, recounts that Jung lent him a copy of Hirsch’s The Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel as a model for what was to become Wouk’s This Is My God.4 Eleff recognizes that Leo Jung’s encounter with Hirsch’s ideas—likely extending back to his parents’ home given the influence of Hirsch’s thought on Jung’s father—was part of his experience at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary. Eleff’s comments are certainly well taken. That said, Jung acknowledged with appreciation the influence of his principal teacher at the Berlin Rabbinerseminar, the Seminary’s Rector David Zvi Hoffmann, in shaping his understanding of Judaism and torah im derekh eretz, described by Jung as “the harmonious synthesis of western achievement and Jewish asset.”5 He recalled Hoffmann, from whom he earned his “most cherished” semikhah, as a “selfless personality, matchless in assiduity, tremendous in knowledge,” to whom he owed insight into torah im derekh eretz.6 In the preface to one of his early works—published within a decade of completing his semikhah examinations with D. Z. Hoffmann—Jung both points to the direct impact of Hoffmann and to Hirsch’s influence in shaping his worldview. After noting the abiding inspiration of his father, Jung writes: “Next to him, my other teacher, David Hoffmann—and S.R. Hirsch.”7 It is the influence of Hoffmann and the Rabbinerseminar on Jung that these pages explore.

Acquiring Universal Values through a Particular Tradition: A Perspective on Judaism and Modern Pluralism

Religious traditions can be sources of values and attitudes supporting the liberal polity in ways that political theorizing and conceptions of public reason often fail to recognize. moreover, religious traditions can give support through the ways reason is crucial to their self-understanding. one understanding of Judaism is examined as an example. Also, the particularism of traditions can encourage commitment to universally valid values and ideals. reason’s role in Judaism and other religious traditions makes possible constructive interaction between those traditions and between religious and secular thought. exclusion of religiously grounded considerations from the discourse and deliberations of liberal polities can be counterproductively illiberal.

What Nostra Aetate Inaugurated: A Conversion to the “Providential Mystery of Otherness”

The Second Vatican Council's declaration Nostra aetate (NA) is regarded as a “watershed” document. NA no. 4, on relations with the Jewish people, is frequently cited as evidence of a turning point in the Catholic Church's attitudes toward the religious Other. Yet the full significance of NA no. 4 becomes manifest only when it is situated in the complex history of the church's understanding of Judaism, including the contentious debates at the council and current theological disputes.

KARL BARTH AND ISLAM

AbstractKarl Barth comments briefly, sporadically and polemically on Islam as a false religion. He views it as a threat to Christendom, using it as a cipher for National Socialism, as an example of absolute monotheism, and finally as a “paganised” form of rabbinic Judaism. But an examination and critique of Barth's understanding of Judaism, which is central to his understanding of Islam, recognises the interdependency of Church and Synagogue for Barth. This article argues that this mutual dependency should also be extended to include Islam. While Barth never developed a theology of Islam per se, this new understanding gives his theology the potential to be of use to the new encounter between Christianity and Islam.

Abraham's Journey: Reflections on the Life of the Founding Patriarch (review)

Abraham's Journey: Reflections on the Life of the Founding Patriarch, by Joseph B. Soloveitchik, edited by David Shatz, Joel B. Wolowelsky, and Reuven Ziegler. Jersey City: KTAV Publishing House, 2008. 224 pp. $25.00. This volume on the biblical patriarch Abraham is the ninth in the MeOtzar HoRav series, faithfully edited by students of Rabbi Soloveitchik (1903-1993), the revered leader of modern Orthodox Jewry in America. Rav, as he is commonly called, was a masterful Talmudist, a brilliant philosopher, and a legendary teacher. A group of Soloveitchik's students worked diligendy to produce this series from handwritten manuscripts and audiotapes of his lectures. The volume is superbly edited, allowing a giant in modern Jewish thought to posthumously speak to a wider audience on fundamental issues of Jewish identity, history, and destiny. Rabbi Soloveitchik's perspective reflects the traditional view of Abraham as a paradigmatic role model for Jews everywhere and at any time. Jewish tradition sees the Genesis narratives about the patriarchs and matriarchs as prototypical lessons for their descendants. The classic expression of this hermeneutical principle is that of Nachmanides, paraphrased as ma'aseh avot siman la-banim - the life events of our Biblical ancestors are signs or instructive precedents for later generations of Jews. Rabbi Soloveitchik, as an ardent teacher and defender of hakkhah, does on occasion link a virtuous practice exemplified by Abraham to the normative system of mitzvot developed over centuries by Rabbinic sages. But the book is not a treatise on Jewish law; it is, instead, an extensive philosophical meditation on what it means to be Jewish, throughout history and in our time, in light of the Genesis stories and later commentaries. Some of Soloveitchik's philosophical and psychological categories are applicable to anyone, Jewish or non-Jewish. For example, Soloveitchik makes a vital distinction between goral (fate), what circumstances dictate, and yi'ud (destiny), a faith journey pursued through deliberate choice, often in opposition to societal norms and at great sacrifice. Abraham demonstrates heroic fidelity to his evolving destiny, serving as an iconoclastic pioneer who sets a spiritual and ethical example for his descendants. Lovingkindness (chesed) and hospitality (hakhnasat orchim) are character traits traditionally associated with Abraham, and Soloveitchik examines how they are exemplified in specific actions. This kind of ethical wisdom, contextualized for our time, is a practical resource for anyone seeking to live a faithful Jewish life. What is more problematic, at least for this reviewer, is Soloveitchik's isolationist understanding of Jewish identity and his negative attitude toward the cultures and values of non-Jews. His spiritually segregationist stance, idealizing loneliness as a tragic Abrahamic virtue to be embraced by Jews, is evident in Soloveitchik's other writings, most famously Tfoe Lonely Man of Faith. His article Confrontation, advocating humanitarian cooperation with non-Jews but opposing dialogue on spiritual or theological concerns, was written for the journal Tradition in the mid-1960s in response to Vatican II and the Catholic Church's radically new understanding of Judaism. For Rabbi Soloveitchik, or for any Jew of his generation who witnessed the horrors of the Shoah, such a tragic worldview is understandable. But it is also lamentable and should be challenged in our own time by a more pluralistic and less defensive stance toward non-Jews. For it is one thing - harsh fate/goral - when others force Jews into physical ghettos; but it is another - self-limiting destiny /yi'ud - when Jews create their own spiritual ghettos and deem them normative habitats in which to live, raise their children, and engage the rest of the world. For Soloveitchik (p. 181),[t]he destiny of Avraham ha-Ivri, the lonely Abraham, has always accompanied the Jews. …

HUMANITY AND ITS GODS: ATHEISM

This paper recounts the author's personal historical relationship with two monotheistic religions, Christianity and Judaism. Freud's own understanding of Judaism as expressed in texts such as Moses and Monotheism is discussed, in relation to the universal aspirations of psychoanalysis. The particular materialism of Enlightenment philosophy is affirmed, whilst an allowance is made for a certain kind of mysticism contra the instrumentalization of human beings so prevalent in contemporary, globalized society.

Meet the New Paul, Same as the Old Paul: Michael Wychograd, Kendall Soulen, and the New Problem of Supersessionism

Meet the New Paul, Same as the Old Paul: Michael Wychograd, Kendall Soulen, and the New Problem of Supersessionism William Plevan I had the privilege of meeting both Kendall Soulen and Michael Wyschograd at a conference sponsored by the Institute for Christian‐Jewish Studies in Baltimore. ICJS had gathered a group of Jewish and Christian (all from Presbyterian and Lutheran backgrounds) scholars, clergy, educators and lay people to participate in six study and dialogue sessions over the course of two years on the subject of “The Scandal of Particularity.” The aim of the series was to engage a variety of stakeholders in the future of Jewish‐Christian relations by examining the question of how our different traditions conceive of their own particularity, and how expressions of particularity impact the way we understand our involvement in the public square of American political and social life and our relations with members of other faith traditions. Rather than limit interfaith dialogue by hoping to find some kind of “common ground” shared by Judaism and Christianity, the conference dared us to think that the differences between these two traditions might be more important than any similarities we might find, and that these supposed similarities might be superficial at best. Soulen and Wyschograd could not have been a better pair to bring as guest scholars to the ICJS conference. This is partly because Wyschograd has been one of the leading Jewish participants in Jewish‐Christian dialogue in the past forty years, and Soulen has been his most important Christian admirer and interpreter. More significantly, it is because of the way both Wyschograd and Soulen have dealt with the issue of particularity in their work on the theological relationship between Judaism and Christianity. In his seminal work, The Body of Faith, Wyschograd argued that the central theological concept of Judaism is God’s election of Israel to be God’s beloved people. While God demands that Israel observe the commandments and while certain beliefs about God’s nature may be implicit in the Biblical record, the essence of divine election is not the commandments or any beliefs about God, but rather God’s preferential and parental love of the carnal family of Israel, the flesh and blood decedents of Jacob. One of the most refreshing aspects of Wyschograd’s Jewish theology is his open acknowledgment that those aspects of Christian theology that Jews typically find most un‐Jewish, like the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, actually have roots in Jewish ideas, such as God’s presence in the people Israel. This willingness to reject simplistic dichotomies between Judaism and Christianity has greatly enriched interfaith dialogue, as it did for us at the conference. Indeed, Wyschograd’s philosophical and theological work has always been concerned with the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and he acknowledges his debt to Christian thinkers, particularly Kierkegaard and Karl Barth, not only for his understanding of Christianity but also for his understanding of Judaism as a religion of carnal election. Because of his serious and open‐minded engagement with Christianity, Wyschograd has also been influential in both academic and theological circles for his novel interpretations of the epistles of the Apostle Paul. Paul is often viewed by Jewish critics as the father of supersessionism for supposedly rejecting the validity of the commandments of the Torah after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is this interpretation of Paul that formed the basis for the Church’s claim that God has rejected the Jews for their rejection of Christ and made the Church the “new Israel,” the inheritors of God’s preferential love. And it is precisely this interpretation of Paul that Wyschograd challenges, suggesting instead that Paul not only maintains that the commandments have validity for Jews but also that Paul believes that Israel’s covenant with God is never abrogated. Centuries of Christian theologians have, according to Wyschograd, been misreading Paul. This new reading, sometimes dubbed “the New Paul,” undermines two millennia of theological rationales for Christian supersessionism. Although I am not a scholar of the New Testament, and hence unwilling to claim an authoritative judgment, I do find the basic elements of the New Paul reading convincing, some...

Healing Wounds: Reflections on Abraham Joshua Heschel and Interfaith Partnership in Poland

AbstractAbraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) was born in Warsaw, Poland, in a devout Hasidic community and earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Berlin during Hitler's rise to power. He immigrated to the United States in 1940 and became a Judaic scholar, writer, teacher, theologian, and social activist. Heschel influenced the drafting of Nostra Aetate during the Second Vatican Council, and Christians and Jews saw Heschel as an embodiment of a Hebrew prophet. Yet Heschel himself was irremediably wounded by the Holocaust. He remained vulnerable, hypersensitive to other people's pain, bereft of consolation. Long impressed by a web of associations on the role of predominantly Roman Catholic Poles in the destruction of European Jews, I had to confront my own negative "imaginary" during eight days I recently spent in Poland, filled with Jewish content. Participation in an international, interfaith conference on Heschel at the University of Warsaw in June 2007, and in the Jewish culture festival in Krakow, managed to convince me that non-Jews could develop and help foster an authentic understanding of Judaism and the Jewish experience. Despite persistent memories of atrocities, my feelings toward Poland and the Poles underwent a transformation. If Heschel's wounds were not ultimately healed, at least my negative imaginary has begun to give way to a hopeful future.

Judaism, Theology and the Human Rights of People with Disabilities

SUMMARY How we understand Jewish attitudes to disability will depend on whether, like the reform movement, we take the torah to be the only relevant text, or whether our understanding of Judaism incorporates the “oral law,” the Talmud. The belief that all human beings were created in the image of God presupposes an acceptance that each life is of inherent value to the creator despite apparent imperfections. The requirement to heal the world through deeds of loving kindness is incumbent on each and every Jew independent of disability and it is the responsibility of communities to remove any barriers there are to observance. Essentially, Judaism teaches us that one must treat others as they themselves would wish to be treated, and this extends equally to those who have disabilities.

Talmud, Talmudisti, and Albert the Great

"Talmud, Talmudisti, and Albert and Great." Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus) was one of forty Parisian ecclesiastics and scholars who participated in Odo of Chatêauroux' s investigation of the Talmud in 1247, leading to its condemnation on 15 May 1248. Although Albert the Great composed no systematic polemic against Judaism, scattered throughout his writings one finds a few references to the Talmud, to medieval Jewish scholars, and to Judaism itself. Nevertheless, no study has yet attempted to examine Albert's understanding of Judaism and the Talmud. Despite Albert's prominence in the new mendicant movement, which Jeremy Cohen has argued raised anti- Jewish polemics to a harsher, more aggressive level, Cohen remarks that Albert's attitude toward Jews and Judaism was relatively benign and traditional (i.e., Augustinian). This paper examines this claim, explores in Albert's writings his views of Jews and Judaism, and discusses his contributions to the increasingly aggressive missionary effort directed toward the Jews by his fellow Dominicans.

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHY AND SELF-IMAGE OF CONTEMPORARY KARAITES

Karaism is the most resilient, longest surviving, Jewish sectarian form of religion, having presented an alternate, non-rabbinic Judaism for at least the past 1100 years. The term is usually taken to mean scripturalist, and, indeed, the Karaites claim that their religious law is in accordance with the biblical precepts, whereas rabbinic Judaism (or Rabbanism) is often, from their point of view, at variance with the Bible. The Karaites do not accept Jewish law as formulated in the Talmud and the post-Talmudic codes (such as the Shulhan Arukh), and they have developed their own law codes and religious practices. Over the years, Karaite observances have become closer to rabbinic practices in many respects, but there are still noticeable divergences between the two variations of Judaism. Today, there are approximately 30,000 Karaites in the world, most of whom are of Egyptian origin and live in the State of Israel.' How Karaism arose is still an open question, a question that has long intrigued both theologians and historians. These groups have looked to the Karaites in an attempt to reach a better understanding of Judaism. Rabbanite historiographers, claiming that rabbinic Judaism has been, is, and will be the one and only normative Judaism from