Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook2,055 pages29 hours
Cultures of the Jews: A New History (National Jewish Book Award)
By David Biale
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
WITH MORE THAN 100 BLACK-AND-WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT
Who are “the Jews”? Scattered over much of the world throughout most of their three-thousand-year-old history, are they one people or many? How do they resemble and how do they differ from Jews in other places and times? What have their relationships been to the cultures of their neighbors?
To address these and similar questions, twenty-three of the finest scholars of our day—archaeologists, cultural historians, literary critics, art historians , folklorists, and historians of relation, all affiliated with major academic institutions in the United States, Israel, and France—have contributed their insight to Cultures of the Jews. The premise of their endeavor is that although Jews have always had their own autonomous traditions, Jewish identity cannot be considered immutable, the fixed product of either ancient ethnic or religious origins. Rather, it has shifted and assumed new forms in response to the cultural environment in which the Jews have lived.
Building their essays on specific cultural artifacts—a poem, a letter, a traveler’s account, a physical object of everyday or ritual use—that were made in the period and locale they study, the contributors describe the cultural interactions among different Jews—from rabbis and scholars to non-elite groups, including women—as well as between Jews and the surrounding non-Jewish world.
Part One, “Mediterranean Origins,” describes the concept of the “People” or “Nation” of Israel that emerges in the Hebrew Bible and the culture of the Israelites in relation to that of the Canaanite groups. It goes on to discuss Jewish cultures in the Greco-Roman world, Palestine during the Byzantine period, Babylonia, and Arabia during the formative years of Islam.
Part Two, “Diversities of Diaspora,” illuminates Judeo-Arabic culture in the Golden Age of Islam, Sephardic culture as it bloomed first if the Iberian Peninsula and later in Amsterdam, the Jewish-Christian symbiosis in Ashkenazic Europe and in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the culture of the Italian Jews of the Renaissance period, and the many strands of folklore, magic, and material culture that run through diaspora Jewish history.
Part Three, “Modern Encounters,” examines communities, ways of life, and both high and fold culture in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, the Ladino Diaspora, North Africa and the Middle East, Ethiopia, Zionist Palestine and the State of Israel, and, finally, the United States.
Cultures of the Jews is a landmark, representing the fruits of the present generation of scholars in Jewish studies and offering a new foundation upon which all future research into Jewish history will be based. Its unprecedented interdisciplinary approach will resonate widely among general readers and the scholarly community, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and it will change the terms of the never-ending debate over what constitutes Jewish identity.
Who are “the Jews”? Scattered over much of the world throughout most of their three-thousand-year-old history, are they one people or many? How do they resemble and how do they differ from Jews in other places and times? What have their relationships been to the cultures of their neighbors?
To address these and similar questions, twenty-three of the finest scholars of our day—archaeologists, cultural historians, literary critics, art historians , folklorists, and historians of relation, all affiliated with major academic institutions in the United States, Israel, and France—have contributed their insight to Cultures of the Jews. The premise of their endeavor is that although Jews have always had their own autonomous traditions, Jewish identity cannot be considered immutable, the fixed product of either ancient ethnic or religious origins. Rather, it has shifted and assumed new forms in response to the cultural environment in which the Jews have lived.
Building their essays on specific cultural artifacts—a poem, a letter, a traveler’s account, a physical object of everyday or ritual use—that were made in the period and locale they study, the contributors describe the cultural interactions among different Jews—from rabbis and scholars to non-elite groups, including women—as well as between Jews and the surrounding non-Jewish world.
Part One, “Mediterranean Origins,” describes the concept of the “People” or “Nation” of Israel that emerges in the Hebrew Bible and the culture of the Israelites in relation to that of the Canaanite groups. It goes on to discuss Jewish cultures in the Greco-Roman world, Palestine during the Byzantine period, Babylonia, and Arabia during the formative years of Islam.
Part Two, “Diversities of Diaspora,” illuminates Judeo-Arabic culture in the Golden Age of Islam, Sephardic culture as it bloomed first if the Iberian Peninsula and later in Amsterdam, the Jewish-Christian symbiosis in Ashkenazic Europe and in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the culture of the Italian Jews of the Renaissance period, and the many strands of folklore, magic, and material culture that run through diaspora Jewish history.
Part Three, “Modern Encounters,” examines communities, ways of life, and both high and fold culture in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, the Ladino Diaspora, North Africa and the Middle East, Ethiopia, Zionist Palestine and the State of Israel, and, finally, the United States.
Cultures of the Jews is a landmark, representing the fruits of the present generation of scholars in Jewish studies and offering a new foundation upon which all future research into Jewish history will be based. Its unprecedented interdisciplinary approach will resonate widely among general readers and the scholarly community, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and it will change the terms of the never-ending debate over what constitutes Jewish identity.
Unavailable
Read more from David Biale
Eros and the Jews: From Biblical Israel to Contemporary America Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Hasidism and Modern Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hasidism: A New History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jewish Culture between Canon and Heresy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNot in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aerograms Across the Ocean Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Cultures of the Jews
Related ebooks
The Other New York Jewish Intellectuals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWriting Jewish Culture: Paradoxes in Ethnography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClassics of Jewish Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Shtetl and Other Yiddish Novellas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLingering Bilingualism: Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literatures in Contact Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Future Is in America: Autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish Immigrants Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsModern Jewish Literatures: Intersections and Boundaries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEarly Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChosen Peoples: 'Scratch the Christian and you find the pagan - spoiled'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPerceptions of Jewish History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPreachers of the Italian Ghetto Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Politics, and Culture, 1893–1958 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elie Wiesel: Jewish, Literary, and Moral Perspectives Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Aspects of Rabbinic Theology: Including the Original Preface of 1909 & the Introduction by Louis Finkelstein Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJews and Diaspora Nationalism: Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInventing New Beginnings: On the Idea of Renaissance in Modern Judaism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsForty Years In America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Jewish Persona in the European Imagination: A Case of Russian Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Multiculturalism in Israel: Literary Perspectives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJewish Literature and Other Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFestivals, Folklore & Philosophy: A Secularist Revisits Jewish Traditions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSurvivors and Exiles: Yiddish Culture after the Holocaust Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Holocaust Averted: An Alternate History of American Jewry, 1938-1967 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLanguage in Time of Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Scandal of Kabbalah: Leon Modena, Jewish Mysticism, Early Modern Venice Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5From Continuity to Contiguity: Toward a New Jewish Literary Thinking Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works of Israel Abrahams Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotes from the Valley of Slaughter: A Memoir from the Ghetto of Šiauliai, Lithuania Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Anthropology For You
You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bullshit Jobs: A Theory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The White Album: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Psychology of Totalitarianism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermined America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Regarding the Pain of Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trouble With Testosterone: And Other Essays On The Biology Of The Human Predi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Survive in Ancient Egypt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories of Rootworkers & Hoodoo in the Mid-South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Collected Essays: Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, and After Henry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wedge: Evolution, Consciousness, Stress and the Key to Human Resilience Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bruce Lee Wisdom for the Way Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future---Updated With a New Epilogue Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Cultures of the Jews
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews