American Rabbis, Second Edition

American Rabbis, Second Edition
Author: David J. Zucker
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2019-06-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1532653263

This book is a broad-brush approach describing the realities of life in the American rabbinate. Factual portrayals are supplemented by examples drawn from fiction--primarily novels and short stories. Chapters include: ♣Rabbinic Training ♣Congregational Rabbis and Their Communities ♣Congregants' Views of Their Rabbis ♣Women Rabbis [also including examples from TV and Cinema] ♣Assimilation, Intermarriage, Patrilineality, and Human Sexuality ♣God, Israel, and Tradition This book draws upon sociological data, including the recent Pew Research Center survey on Jewish life in America, and presents a contemporary view of rabbis and their communities. The realities of the American rabbinate are then compared/contrasted with the ways fiction writers present their understanding of rabbinic life. The book explores illustrations from two hundred novels, short stories, and TV/cinema; representing well over 135 authors. From the first real-life women rabbis in the early 1970s to today's statistics of close to 1,600 women rabbis worldwide, major changes have taken place. Women rabbis are transforming the face of Judaism. For example, this newly revised second edition of American Rabbis: Facts and Fiction reflects a fivefold increase in terms of examples of fictional women rabbis, from when the book was first published in 1998. There is new and expanded material on some of the challenges in the twenty-first century, women rabbis, human sexuality/LGBTQ matters, trans/post/non-denominational seminaries, and community-based rabbis.

American Rabbis

American Rabbis
Author: David J. Zucker
Publisher: Jason Aronson
Total Pages: 348
Release: 1998
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780765799890

What makes this book really interesting is that Zucker compares the "facts" of the modern rabbinate with the "fictional" rabbinate; that is, with rabbis in novels and short stories written during the past fifty years. He offers selections from over one hundred works of fiction and nearly seventy-five fiction writers, including: Harry Kemelman, Allegra Goodman, Noah Gordon, Rhonda Shapiro-Rieser, Joseph Telushkin, Naomi Ragen, Philip Roth, Faye Kellerman, Bernard Malamud, Eileen Pollack, Herman Wouk and Alex J. Goldman - one of the few men who write about a rabbi who is also a woman. In addition, Zucker devotes important chapters to God, Israel and Tradition as well as to contemporary issues, such as assimilation, intermarriage and patrilineality. Further, he includes a major chapter on rabbis who are also women. Some "rabbi" fiction comes closer to reality than others do. The most famous of the fictional rabbis is "Rabbi David Small" of the Harry Kemelman mystery series. Beginning with Friday, the Rabbi Slept Late, Kemelman followed "Rabbi Small" through twenty-five years. To an outsider looking inside of this "weekday" rabbi series, the on-going tensions between "Rabbi Small" and his Board of Directors seem overdrawn. This is understandable considering that fiction often relies upon dramatic moments filled with strife to carry the plot. However to an insider, many of these conflicts are accurate. One of the unsolved mysteries of Kemelman's twelve books is "Rabbi Small's" survival of his congregational experience, a detail that is paralleled in the careers of many real rabbis. On the other side of this fact-fiction coin, some rabbi-centered fiction is far from reality. Historically, TV and the movies have portrayed rabbis as Orthodox men, as if only they were authentic. Further, many have been portrayed as ineffectual. Thankfully, "Rabbi Small" - televised in 1977 - was an exception to these "norms". All rabbis serve as priests, pastors, and companions through the life-cycles and life-crises of their c

American Judaism

American Judaism
Author: Jonathan D. Sarna
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 558
Release: 2019-06-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0300190395

Jonathan D. Sarna's award-winning American Judaism is now available in an updated and revised edition that summarizes recent scholarship and takes into account important historical, cultural, and political developments in American Judaism over the past fifteen years. Praise for the first edition: "Sarna . . . has written the first systematic, comprehensive, and coherent history of Judaism in America; one so well executed, it is likely to set the standard for the next fifty years."--Jacob Neusner, Jerusalem Post "A masterful overview."--Jeffrey S. Gurock, American Historical Review "This book is destined to be the new classic of American Jewish history."--Norman H. Finkelstein, Jewish Book World Winner of the 2004 National Jewish Book Award/Jewish Book of the Year

Union Prayer-Book for Jewish Worship

Union Prayer-Book for Jewish Worship
Author: Central Conference of American Rabbis
Publisher: Franklin Classics Trade Press
Total Pages: 82
Release: 2018-10-23
Genre:
ISBN: 9780344078477

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

American Rabbis, Second Edition

American Rabbis, Second Edition
Author: David J. Zucker
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2019-06-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1532653247

This book is a broad-brush approach describing the realities of life in the American rabbinate. Factual portrayals are supplemented by examples drawn from fiction—primarily novels and short stories. Chapters include: ♣Rabbinic Training ♣Congregational Rabbis and Their Communities ♣Congregants’ Views of Their Rabbis ♣Women Rabbis [also including examples from TV and Cinema] ♣Assimilation, Intermarriage, Patrilineality, and Human Sexuality ♣God, Israel, and Tradition This book draws upon sociological data, including the recent Pew Research Center survey on Jewish life in America, and presents a contemporary view of rabbis and their communities. The realities of the American rabbinate are then compared/contrasted with the ways fiction writers present their understanding of rabbinic life. The book explores illustrations from two hundred novels, short stories, and TV/cinema; representing well over 135 authors. From the first real-life women rabbis in the early 1970s to today’s statistics of close to 1,600 women rabbis worldwide, major changes have taken place. Women rabbis are transforming the face of Judaism. For example, this newly revised second edition of American Rabbis: Facts and Fiction reflects a fivefold increase in terms of examples of fictional women rabbis, from when the book was first published in 1998. There is new and expanded material on some of the challenges in the twenty-first century, women rabbis, human sexuality/LGBTQ matters, trans/post/non-denominational seminaries, and community-based rabbis.

The Chosen People in America

The Chosen People in America
Author: Arnold M. Eisen
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 1983-11-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0253114128

An exploration of how American Jewish thinkers grapple with the notion of being the isolated “Chosen People” in a nation that is a melting pot. What does it mean to be a Jew in America? What opportunities and what threats does the great melting pot represent for a group that has traditionally defined itself as “a people that must dwell alone?” Although for centuries the notion of “The Chosen People” sustained Jewish identity, America, by offering Jewish immigrants an unprecedented degree of participation in the larger society, threatened to erode their Jewish identity and sense of separateness. Arnold M. Eisen charts the attempts of American Jewish thinkers to adapt the notion of chosenness to an American context. Through an examination of sermons, essays, debates, prayer-book revisions, and theological literature, Eisen traces the ways in which American rabbis and theologians—Reconstructionist, Conservative, and Orthodox thinkers—effected a compromise between exclusivity and participation that allowed Jews to adapt to American life while simultaneously enhancing Jewish tradition and identity. “This is a book of extraordinary quality and importance. In tracing the encounter of Jews (the chosen people) and America (the chosen nation) . . . Eisen has given the American Jewish community a new understanding of itself.” —American Jewish Archives “One of the most significant books on American Jewish thought written in recent years.” —Choice

The American Jewish Experience

The American Jewish Experience
Author: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Center for the Study of the American Jewish Experience
Publisher: Holmes & Meier Publishers
Total Pages: 332
Release: 1986
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780841909342

The Chosen Wars

The Chosen Wars
Author: Steven R. Weisman
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2019-08-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1416573275

“An important beginning to understanding the truth over myth about Judaism in American history” (New York Journal of Books), Steven R. Weisman tells the dramatic story of the personalities that fought each other and shaped this ancient religion in America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The struggles that produced a redefinition of Judaism illuminate the larger American experience and the efforts by all Americans to reconcile their faith with modern demands. The narrative begins with the arrival of the first Jews in New Amsterdam and plays out over the nineteenth century as a massive immigration takes place at the dawn of the twentieth century. First there was the practical matter of earning a living. Many immigrants had to work on the Sabbath or traveled as peddlers to places where they could not keep kosher. Doctrine was put aside or adjusted. To take their places as equals, American Jews rejected their identity as a separate nation within America. Judaism became an American religion. These profound changes did not come without argument. Steven R. Weisman’s “lucid and entertaining” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) The Chosen Wars tells the stories of the colorful rabbis and activists—including Isaac Mayer Wise, Mordecai Noah, David Einhorn, Rebecca Gratz, and Isaac Lesser—who defined American Judaism and whose disputes divided it into the Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox branches that remain today. “Only rarely does an author succeed in writing a book that reframes how we perceive our own history. The Chosen Wars is...fascinating and provocative” (Jewish Journal).

The Book of Jonah

The Book of Jonah
Author: Shmuly Yanklowitz
Publisher: CCAR Press
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2020-03-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0881233617

The Book of Jonah is a unique text in the Jewish canon. Among the shortest books in the Bible, it is also one of the most mysterious and morally ambiguous. Who is this prophet running from God, hiding at the bottom of the ocean? Why does he struggle with God's mission to save and forgive Israel's enemies? In this volume, Rabbi Dr. Yanklowitz shows that the Book of Jonah delivers a message of human responsibility in a shared world. Illuminating such contemporary ethical issues as animal welfare, incarceration, climate change, weapons of mass destruction, and Jewish-Muslim relations, this social justice commentary urges us to join in repairing a broken world--a call that we, unlike Jonah, must hasten to answer.

שערי תפלה

שערי תפלה
Author: Chaim Stern
Publisher: CCAR Press
Total Pages: 804
Release: 1975-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780916694012

Profoundly rooted in Jewish tradition, Gates of Prayer has become the standard liturgical work for the Reform Movement. This prayerbook contains a variety of services for weekdays, Shabbat and festivals, Israeli Independence Day, Holocaust Remembrance Day and Tisha Be-av. Also contains special readings, meditations and 70 songs complete with transliterations.