Jewish Studies

Fifty Key Jewish Thinkers is a panoramic survey of over 2,000 years of Jewish thought, religious and secular, ancient and modern. Now in its second edition, this essential reference guide contains new introductions to the lives and works of such thinkers as: Hannah Arendt, Immanuel Levinas, Judith Plaskow, Sigmund Freud, and Walter Benjamin.

In this much-needed textbook, which surveys the most prominent thinkers of the last three centuries, Claire Katz situates modern Jewish philosophy in the wider cultural and intellectual context of its day, indicating how broader currents of British, French and German thought influenced its practitioners. But she also addresses the unique ways in which being Jewish colored their output, suggesting that a keen sense of particularity enabled the Jewish philosophers to help define the whole modern era.

This volume explores the ways in which Jews have traditionally defined other groups and, in turn, themselves. Among the topics addressed are: Others in the biblical world; the construction of gender in Roman-period Judaism; the Other as woman in the Greco-Roman world; the gentile as Other in rabbinic law; the feminine as Other in kabbalah; the reproduction of the Other in the Passover Haggadah; the Palestinian Arab as Other in Israeli politics and literature; the Other in Levinas and Derrida; Blacks as Other in American Jewish literature; the Jewish body image as symbol of Otherness; and women as Other in Israeli cinema.

In a work that illustrates how Jewish philosophy can make a genuine contribution to general philosophical debate, Daniel Rynhold attempts to formulate a model for the justification of practices by applying the methods of modern analytic philosophy to approaches to the rationalization of thecommandments from the history of Jewish philosophy.

Kosher USA follows the fascinating journey of kosher food through the modern industrial food system. It recounts how iconic products such as Coca-Cola and Jell-O tried to become kosher; the contentious debates among rabbis over the incorporation of modern science into Jewish law; how Manischewitz wine became the first kosher product to win over non-Jewish consumers (principally African Americans); the techniques used by Orthodox rabbinical organizations to embed kosher requirements into food manufacturing; and the difficulties encountered by kosher meat and other kosher foods that fell outside the American culinary consensus.

Even more than in the synagogue, Jewish life takes place around the dining table. Jewish sages compare the dining table to an altar, and that isn't an exaggeration. Jewish meals are ceremonies and celebrations that forge a pathway between body and soul. In this unique cookbook, Carol Ungar links the cultural and religious symbolism of Jewish foods to more than one hundred recipes drawn from international Jewish cultures and traditions.

This comprehensive collection of articles providing high quality content, constitutes a definitive statement on the state of Jewish Education world wide, as well as through a wide variety of lenses and contexts. It is written in a style that is accessible to a global community of academics and professionals.

A guidebook to the most current trends in contemporary Jewish art and design, Reinventing Ritual provides an unprecedented look at the work and thought of contemporary artists as they respond to the needs and practices of traditional culture. Beautifully illustrated with new art from Israel, Europe, and the Americas, this publication features both traditional and avant-garde sculpture, textiles, architecture, metalwork, and ceramics by forty leading artists.

Raz Yosef explores Israeli cinemas role in the creation of national identity and the complex ways the marginalization of queerness became necessary to that goal. His critique of the construction of masculinities and queerness in Israeli cinema and culture also serves as a model for the investigation of the role of male sexuality within national culture in general.

Leading international experts introduce the broad range of genres found in Jewish music from the biblical era to the present day, including classical, religious, folk, popular, and dance music. The chapters explore Jewish liturgy, Klezmer, music in Israel, the music of Yiddish theatre and cinema, and classical music from the Jewish Enlightenment through to the postmodern era.

This unique encyclopedia chronicles American Jewish popular culture, past and present in music, art, food, religion, literature, and more.

Scott R. Benarde spent five years combining his love of Judaism, journalism, and rock'n'roll investigating the Jewish contribution to rock music from 1953 to the present. Noting that outside of the Christian rock genre the media had rarely (with the exception of Bob Dylan) dealt with a rock star's religion or spirituality, Benarde was determined to find out how Judaism influenced rock music and the people who created it.