You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
How did one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of the 20th century grapple with the founding of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—one of the most significant political conflicts of his time? Samuel Hayim Brody traces the development of Martin Buber's thinking and its implications for the Jewish religion, for the problems posed by Zionism, and for the Zionist-Arab conflict. Beginning in turbulent Weimar Germany, Brody shows how Buber's debates about Biblical meanings had concrete political consequences for anarchists, socialists, Zionists, Nazis, British, and Palestinians alike. Brody further reveals how Buber's passionate commitment to the rule of God absent an intermediary came into conflict in the face of a Zionist movement in danger of repeating ancient mistakes. Brody argues that Buber's support for Israel stemmed from a radically rich and complex understanding of the nature of the Jewish mission on earth that arose from an anarchist reading of the Bible.
How did one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of the 20th century grapple with the founding of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—one of the most significant political conflicts of his time? Samuel Hayim Brody traces the development of Martin Buber's thinking and its implications for the Jewish religion, for the problems posed by Zionism, and for the Zionist-Arab conflict. Beginning in turbulent Weimar Germany, Brody shows how Buber's debates about Biblical meanings had concrete political consequences for anarchists, socialists, Zionists, Nazis, British, and Palestinians alike. Brody further reveals how Buber's passionate commitment to the rule of God absent an intermediary came into conflict in the face of a Zionist movement in danger of repeating ancient mistakes. Brody argues that Buber's support for Israel stemmed from a radically rich and complex understanding of the nature of the Jewish mission on earth that arose from an anarchist reading of the Bible.
1. Amsterdam: a center of credit -- 2. Frankfurt an der Oder: Central European middlemen -- 3. Border lands: legal restrictions, army supplying, and economic success -- 4. Praga: a stepping stone -- 5. Warsaw: the rise of a Jewish economic elite
As government by the people, democracy has always had its proponents as well as opponents. What forms of government have Jewish leaders, both with and without actual political power, favored? Not surprisingly, many options have been offered theoretically and in practice. Perhaps more surprisingly, democracy has been at the heart of most systems of governance. Biblical Israel was largely a monarchy, but many writers of the Bible were critical of the excesses that almost always arise when human kings take charge: the general populace loses its freedom. In rabbinic Judaism, the majority ruled, and many principles that support modern democratic institutions have their basis in interpretations of...
Blood, in Gil AnidjarÕs argument, maps the singular history of Christianity. A category for historical analysis, blood can be seen through its literal and metaphorical uses as determining, sometimes even defining, Western culture, politics, and social practices and their wide-ranging incarnations in nationalism, capitalism, and law. Engaging with a variety of sources, Anidjar explores the presence and the absence, the making and unmaking of blood in philosophy and medicine, law and literature, and economic and political thought, from ancient Greece to medieval Spain, from the Bible to Shakespeare and Melville. The prevalence of blood in the social, juridical, and political organization of the modern West signals that we do not live in a secular age into which religion could return. Flowing across multiple boundaries, infusing them with violent precepts that we must address, blood undoes the presumed oppositions between religion and politics, economy and theology, and kinship and race. It demonstrates that what we think of as modern is in fact imbued with Christianity. Christianity, Blood fiercely argues, must be reconsidered beyond the boundaries of religion alone.
From the 1880s through the 1940s, tens of thousands of first- and second-generation immigrants embraced the anarchist cause after arriving on American shores. Kenyon Zimmer explores why these migrants turned to anarchism, and how their adoption of its ideology shaped their identities, experiences, and actions. Zimmer focuses on Italians and Eastern European Jews in San Francisco, New York City, and Paterson, New Jersey. Tracing the movement's changing fortunes from the pre–World War I era through the Spanish Civil War, Zimmer argues that anarchists, opposed to both American and Old World nationalism, severed all attachments to their nations of origin but also resisted assimilation into their host society. Their radical cosmopolitan outlook and identity instead embraced diversity and extended solidarity across national, ethnic, and racial divides. Though ultimately unable to withstand the onslaught of Americanism and other nationalisms, the anarchist movement nonetheless provided a shining example of a transnational collective identity delinked from the nation-state and racial hierarchies.
Howe's historical linkings, resonant with the sorrows of love and loss and the tragedies of war, create a compelling canvas of associations.
This volume of essays constitutes a critical evaluation of Martin Buber’s concept of dialogue as a trans-disciplinary hermeneutic method. So conceived, dialogue has two distinct but ultimately convergent vectors. The first is directed to the subject of one’s investigation: one is to listen to the voice of the Other and to suspend all predetermined categories and notions that one may have of the Other; dialogue is, first and foremost, the art of unmediated listening. One must allow the voice of the Other to question one’s pre-established positions fortified by professional, emotional, intellectual and ideological commitments. Dialogue is also to be conducted between various disciplinary...
From one of the world’s most celebrated moral philosophers comes a thorough examination of the current political crisis and recommendations for how to mend our divided country. For decades Martha C. Nussbaum has been an acclaimed scholar and humanist, earning dozens of honors for her books and essays. In The Monarchy of Fear she turns her attention to the current political crisis that has polarized American since the 2016 election. Although today’s atmosphere is marked by partisanship, divisive rhetoric, and the inability of two halves of the country to communicate with one another, Nussbaum focuses on what so many pollsters and pundits have overlooked. She sees a simple truth at the hea...
Allegra Goodman has delighted readers with her critically acclaimed collections Total Immersion and The Family Markowitz, and her celebrated first novel, Kaaterskill Falls, which was a national bestseller and a National Book Award finalist. Abandoned by her folk-dancing partner, Gary, in a Honolulu hotel room, Sharon realizes she could return to Boston—and her estranged family—or listen to that little voice inside herself. The voice that asks: “How come Gary got to pursue his causes, while all I got to pursue was him?” Thus, with an open heart, a soul on fire, and her meager possessions (a guitar, two Indian gauze skirts, a macramé bikini, and her grandfather’s silver watch) Sharon begins her own spiritual quest. Ever the optimist, she is sure at each stage that she has struck it rich “spiritually speaking”—until she comes up empty. Then, in a karmic convergence of events, Sharon starts on the path home to Judaism. Still, even as she embraces her tradition, Sharon’s irrepressible self tugs at her sleeve. Especially when she meets Mikhail, falls truly in love at last, and discovers what even she could not imagine—her destiny.