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Notions of history and the past contained in literature of the Karaite Jewish sect offer insight into the relationship of Karaism to mainstream rabbinic Judaism and to Islam and Christianity. Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding describes how a minority sectarian religious community constructs and uses historical ideology. It investigates the proportioning of historical ideology to law and doctrine and the influence of historical setting on religious writings about the past. Fred Astren discusses modes of representing the past, especially in Jewish culture, and then poses questions about the past in sectarian--particularly Judaic sectarian--contexts. He contrasts early Karait...
The book focuses on the history, ethnography, and convoluted ethnic identity of the Karaites, an ethnoreligious group in Eastern Galicia (modern Ukraine). The small community of the Karaite Jews, a non-Talmudic Turkic-speaking minority, who had been living in Eastern Europe since the late Middle Ages, developed a unique ethnographic culture and religious tradition. The book offers the first comprehensive study of the Galician Karaite community from its earliest days until today with the main emphasis placed on the period from 1772 until 1945. Especially important is the analysis of the twentieth-century dejudaization (or Turkicization) of the community, which saved the Karaites from the horrors of the Holocaust.
Drawing on the variety of archival sources in the host of European and Oriental languages, the book focuses on the history, ethnography, and convoluted ethnic identity of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaites. The vanishing community of the Karaites, a non-Talmudic Turkic-speaking Jewish minority that had been living in Eastern Europe since the late Middle Ages, developed a unique ethnographic culture and religious tradition. The book offers the first comprehensive study of the dramatic history of the Polish-Lithuanian Karaite community in the twentieth century. Especially important is the analysis of the dejudaization (or Turkicization) of the community that saved the Karaites from horrors of the Holocaust.
This book describes the origin and evolution of the Jewish religion from the period leading up to the Exodus to the establishment of Jewish kingdoms in eastern and central Europe during the Middle Ages - a period of about 2500 years. It describes the influence of other religions on Judaism and the influence of Judaism on other monotheistic religions. In particular, the evolution of Christianity from a Jewish sect to an independent religion is described.
A minority within Judaism, the Karaites are known as a 'reading community'-one that looks to the Bible as the authority in all areas of life, including intimate relations and hygiene. Here Ruth Tsoffar considers how Egyptian Kariates of the San Francisco Bay Area define themselves, within both California culture and Judaism, in terms of the Bible and its bearing on their bodies. Women's perspectives play a large role in this ethnography; it is their bodies that are especially regulated by rules of cleanliness and purity to the point where their biological cycles-menstruation, procreation, childbirth, lactation-determine their place in the community. As Tsoffar notes, the female body itself b...
Writing fiction is one thing. Studying the Bible and writing about its teachings is quite another. This project was over 5 years in the making. After all, I would never want to be guilty of adding to or subtracting from the Word of God. I hope and pray that I’ve lived up to that standard with this book. The End Times. The Rapture. A world dictator called the Antichrist. The great tribulation. Christ’s second coming. What do you know about these topics? What you’ve heard in church? Maybe all you know is what you’ve read or seen in popular fiction. But do you know and understand where some of these ideas came from? I know I didn’t. I’d been taught about the End Times from the pulpit in several churches we had attended over the years. And yet, something gnawed at me about a few of the Scriptures used to support those teachings. And then, roughly six years ago, I began a Spirit-led journey through the Bible that I never imagined would result in a book. Now, here it is. Open your mind to the possibility that most, if not all, of what you’ve been taught is wrong.
Max Weinreich’s History of the Yiddish Language is a classic of Yiddish scholarship and is the only comprehensive scholarly account of the Yiddish language from its origin to the present. A monumental, definitive work, History of the Yiddish Language demonstrates the integrity of Yiddish as a language, its evolution from other languages, its unique properties, and its versatility and range in both spoken and written form. Originally published in 1973 in Yiddish by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and partially translated in 1980, it is now being published in full in English for the first time. In addition to his text, Weinreich’s copious references and footnotes are also included in this two-volume set.
Spirituality, Religion, and Peace Education attempts to deeply explore the universal and particular dimensions of education for inner and communal peace. This co-edited book contains fifteen chapters on world spiritual traditions, religions, and their connections and relevance to peacebuilding and peacemaking. This book examines the teachings and practices of Confucius, of Judaism, Islamic Sufism, Christianity, Quakerism, Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and of Indigenous spirituality. Secondly, it explores teaching and learning processes rooted in self discovery, skill development, and contemplative practices for peace. Topics in various chapters include: the Buddhist practice of tonglen; an ind...
This book studies the role of the Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey in providing refuge and prosperity for Jews fleeing from persecution in Europe and Byzantium in medieval times and from Russian pogroms and the Nazi holocaust in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It studies the religiously-based communities of Ottoman and Turkish Jews as well as their economic, cultural and religious lives and their relations with the Muslims and Christians among whom they lived.
This volume contains the papers presented to the second meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, held in Cambridge (UK) in 1995. The papers, all dealing with the theme of the meeting, Legal Texts and Legal Issues, are arranged into five sections. The first section, 'New Texts', contains publications of legal texts, including a copy of the Temple Scroll from Cave 4. Section two presents studies on different aspects of 4QMMT, from its use of Scripture to its concept of Holiness and its relevance for understanding the history of Qumran. The following two sections contain studies on legal texts and legal issues, such as purity, divorce, and sabbath legislation. The final section, 'Qumran and the New Testament', focuses on the importance of the Qumran texts for the study of the New Testament. The volume is published in honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten, and it contains an appreciation of Baumgarten's work, as well as his bibliography.