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In his academic career, that by now spans six decades, Daniel J. Lasker distinguished himself by the wide range of his scholarly interests. In the field of Jewish theology and philosophy he contributed significantly to the study of Rabbinic as well as Karaite authors. In the field of Jewish polemics his studies explore Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew texts, analyzing them in the context of their Christian and Muslim backgrounds. His contributions refer to a wide variety of authors who lived from the 9th century to the 18th century and beyond, in the Muslim East, in Muslin and Christian parts of the Mediterranean Sea, and in west and east Europe. This Festschrift for Daniel J. Lasker consists of four parts. The first highlights his academic career and scholarly achievements. In the three other parts, colleagues and students of Daniel J. Lasker offer their own findings and insights in topics strongly connected to his studies, namely, intersections of Jewish theology and Biblical exegesis with the Islamic and Christian cultures, as well as Jewish-Muslim and Jewish-Christian relations. Thus, this wide-scoped and rich volume offers significant contributions to a variety of topics in Jewish Studies.
This volume presents a collection of articles centring on the language of the Mishnah and the Talmud - the most important Jewish texts (after the Bible), which were compiled in Palestine and Babylonia in the latter centuries of Late Antiquity. Despite the fact that Rabbinic Hebrew has been the subject of growing academic interest across the past century, very little scholarship has been written on it in English. Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew addresses this lacuna, with eight lucid but technically rigorous articles written in English by a range of experienced scholars, focusing on various aspects of Rabbinic Hebrew: its phonology, morphology, syntax, pragmatics and lexicon. This volume is essential reading for students and scholars of Rabbinic studies alike, and constitutes the first in a new series, Studies in Semitic Languages and Cultures, in collaboration with the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge.
A collection of essays and studies of diverse texts and topics in medieval and early modern Jewish literature, using contemporary critical approaches and textual analysis to explore larger ideas and themes in rabbinic Judaism.
The origins of Judaism’s regional ‘subcultures’ are poorly understood, as are Jewish identities other than ‘Ashkenaz’ and ‘Sepharad’. Through case studies and close textual readings, this volume illuminates the role of geopolitical boundaries, cross-cultural influences, and migration in the medieval formation of Jewish regional identities.
This book explores the power of sight for ancient rabbis across the realms of divinity, sexuality, idolatry and rabbinic subjectivity.
Volume 1. The ancient period
Philosophy and Rabbinic Culture is a study of the great, and curiously underappreciated, engagement of a Medieval European Jewish community with the philosophic tradition. This lucid description of the Languedocian Jewish community's multigenerational cultivation of - and acculturation to - scientific and philosophic teachings into Judaism fulfils a major desideratum in Jewish cultural history. In the first detailed account of this long-forgotten Jewish community and its cultural ideal, the author gives an expansive reappraisal of the role of the philosophic interpretation in rabbinic culture and medieval Judaism. Looking at how the cultural ideal of Languedocian Jewry continued to develop and flourish throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with particular reference to the literary style and religious teaching of the great Talmudist, Menahem ha-Meiri, Stern explores issues such as Meiri’s theory of "civilized religions", including Christianity and Islam, controversy over philosophy and philosophic allegory in Languedoc and Catalonia, and the cultural significance of the medical use of astrological images. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of Religion, of Judaism in particular, and of Philosophy, History and Medieval Europe, as well as those interested in Jewish-Christian relations.
This is a study of the notion of Jewishness from c. 200 BCE to c. 200 CE. Reasonable and well-informed people disputed whether a given person was Jewish or not; Cohen opens by discussing just such an argument, about Herod the Great.
How have the Jews survived? For millennia, they have defied odds by overcoming the travails of exile, persecution, and recurring plans for their annihilation. Many have attempted to explain this singular success as a result of divine intervention. In this engaging book, David N. Myers charts the long journey of the Jews through history. At the same time, it points to two unlikely-and decidedly this-worldly--factors to explain the survival of the Jews: antisemitism and assimilation. Usually regarded as grave dangers, these two factors have continually interacted with one other to enable the persistence of the Jews. At every turn in their history, not just in the modern age, Jews have adapted to new environments, cultures, languages, and social norms. These bountiful encounters with host societies have exercised the cultural muscle of the Jews, preventing the atrophy that would have occurred if they had not interacted so extensively with the non-Jewish world. It is through these encounters--indeed, through a process of assimilation--that Jews came to develop distinct local customs, speak many different languages, and cultivate diverse musical, culinary, and intellectual traditions. Left unchecked, the Jews' well-honed ability to absorb from surrounding cultures might have led to their disappearance. And yet, the route toward full and unbridled assimilation was checked by the nearly constant presence of hatred toward the Jew. Anti-Jewish expression and actions have regularly accompanied Jews throughout history. Part of the ironic success of antisemitism is its malleability, its talent in assuming new forms and portraying the Jew in diverse and often contradictory images--for example, at once the arch-capitalist and revolutionary Communist. Antisemitism not only served to blunt further assimilation, but, in a paradoxical twist, affirmed the Jew's sense of difference from the host society. And thus together assimilation and antisemitism (at least up to a certain limit) contribute to the survival of the Jews as a highly adaptable and yet distinct group.