Jews and the American Soul

Jews and the American Soul
Author: Andrew R. Heinze
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 458
Release: 2021-03-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0691227918

What do Joyce Brothers and Sigmund Freud, Rabbi Harold Kushner and philosopher Martin Buber have in common? They belong to a group of pivotal and highly influential Jewish thinkers who altered the face of modern America in ways few people recognize. So argues Andrew Heinze, who reveals in rich and unprecedented detail the extent to which Jewish values, often in tense interaction with an established Christian consensus, shaped the country's psychological and spiritual vocabulary. Jews and the American Soul is the first book to recognize the central role Jews and Jewish values have played in shaping American ideas of the inner life. It overturns the widely shared assumption that modern ideas of human nature derived simply from the nation's Protestant heritage. Heinze marshals a rich array of evidence to show how individuals ranging from Erich Fromm to Ann Landers changed the way Americans think about mind and soul. The book shows us the many ways that Jewish thinkers influenced everything from the human potential movement and pop psychology to secular spirituality. It also provides fascinating new interpretations of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Western views of the psyche; the clash among Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish moral sensibilities in America; the origins and evolution of America's psychological and therapeutic culture; the role of Jewish women as American public moralists, and more. A must-read for anyone interested in the contribution of Jews and Jewish culture to modern America.

The Soul of Judaism

The Soul of Judaism
Author: Bruce D. Haynes
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2018-08-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1479811238

Explores the full diversity of Black Jews, including bi-racial Jews of both matrilineal and patrilineal descent; adoptees; black converts to Judaism; and Black Hebrews and Israelites, who trace their Jewish roots to Africa and challenge the dominant western paradigm of Jews as white and of European descent. The book showcases the lives of Black Jews, demonstrating that racial ascription has been shaping Jewish selfhood for centuries. It reassesses the boundaries between race and ethnicity, offering insight into how ethnicity can be understood only in relation to racialization and the one-drop rule. Within this context, Black Jewish individuals strive to assert their dual identities and find acceptance within their communities. Putting to rest the notion that Jews are white and the Black Jews are therefore a contradiction, the volume argues that we cannot pigeonhole Black Hebrews and Israelites as exotic, militant, and nationalistic sects outside the boundaries of mainstream Jewish thought and community life. it spurs us to consider the significance of the growing population of self-identified Black Jews and its implications for the future of American Jewry.

Jew Vs. Jew

Jew Vs. Jew
Author: Samuel G. Freedman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2000
Genre: Jews
ISBN: 0684859459

At a time when Jews in the United States appear more secure and successful than ever, Freedman maintains that cultural and religious differences are tearing apart their community.

America's Soul in Balance

America's Soul in Balance
Author: Gregory Wallance
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2012-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1608322947

After America entered World War II, a genuine opportunity arose to save at least 70,000 Romanian Jews who had been deported to the killing fields of Transnistria. This title presents the true story of the senior officials of the US State Department at the height of World War II, whom some accused of being accomplices of Hitler.

Koshersoul

Koshersoul
Author: Michael W. Twitty
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 462
Release: 2022-08-09
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 0062891723

“Twitty makes the case that Blackness and Judaism coexist in beautiful harmony, and this is manifested in the foods and traditions from both cultures that Black Jews incorporate into their daily lives…Twitty wishes to start a conversation where people celebrate their differences and embrace commonalities. By drawing on personal narratives, his own and others’, and exploring different cultures, Twitty’s book offers important insight into the journeys of Black Jews.”—Library Journal “A fascinating, cross-cultural smorgasbord grounded in the deep emotional role food plays in two influential American communities.”—Booklist The James Beard award-winning author of the acclaimed The Cooking Gene explores the cultural crossroads of Jewish and African diaspora cuisine and issues of memory, identity, and food. In Koshersoul, Michael W. Twitty considers the marriage of two of the most distinctive culinary cultures in the world today: the foods and traditions of the African Atlantic and the global Jewish diaspora. To Twitty, the creation of African-Jewish cooking is a conversation of migrations and a dialogue of diasporas offering a rich background for inventive recipes and the people who create them. The question that most intrigues him is not just who makes the food, but how the food makes the people. Jews of Color are not outliers, Twitty contends, but significant and meaningful cultural creators in both Black and Jewish civilizations. Koshersoul also explores how food has shaped the journeys of numerous cooks, including Twitty’s own passage to and within Judaism. As intimate, thought-provoking, and profound as The Cooking Gene, this remarkable book teases the senses as it offers sustenance for the soul. Koshersoul includes 48-50 recipes.

Who We Are

Who We Are
Author: Derek Rubin
Publisher: Schocken
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2010-02-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0307493113

This unprecedented collection brings together the major Jewish American writers of the past fifty years as they examine issues of identity and how they’ve made their work respond. E.L. Doctorow questions the very notion of the Jewish American writer, insisting that all great writing is secular and universal. Allegra Goodman embraces the categorization, arguing that it immediately binds her to her readers. Dara Horn, among the youngest of these writers, describes the tendency of Jewish writers to focus on anti-Semitism and advocates a more creative and positive way of telling the Jewish story. Thane Rosenbaum explains that as a child of Holocaust survivors, he was driven to write in an attempt to reimagine the tragic endings in Jewish history. Here are the stories of how these writers became who they are: Saul Bellow on his adolescence in Chicago, Grace Paley on her early love of Romantic poetry, Chaim Potok on being transformed by the work of Evelyn Waugh. Here, too, are Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, Erica Jong, Jonathon Rosen, Tova Mirvis, Pearl Abraham, Alan Lelchuk, Rebecca Goldstein, Nessa Rapoport, and many more. Spanning three generations of Jewish writing in America, these essays — by turns nostalgic, comic, moving, and deeply provocative- constitute an invaluable investigation into the thinking and the work of some of America’s most important writers.

Jews of Brooklyn

Jews of Brooklyn
Author: Ilana Abramovitch
Publisher: UPNE
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781584650034

Over 40 historians, folklorists, and ordinary Brooklyn Jews present a vivid, living record of this astonishing cultural heritage. 150 illustrations. Map.

The New American Judaism

The New American Judaism
Author: Jack Wertheimer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2020-03-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0691202516

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies—an engaging firsthand portrait of American Judaism today American Judaism has been buffeted by massive social upheavals in recent decades. Like other religions in the United States, it has witnessed a decline in the number of participants over the past forty years, and many who remain active struggle to reconcile their hallowed traditions with new perspectives—from feminism and the LGBTQ movement to "do-it-yourself religion" and personally defined spirituality. Taking a fresh look at American Judaism today, Jack Wertheimer, a leading authority on the subject, sets out to discover how Jews of various orientations practice their religion in this radically altered landscape. Which observances still resonate, and which ones have been given new meaning? What options are available for seekers or those dissatisfied with conventional forms of Judaism? And how are synagogues responding? Offering new and often-surprising answers to these questions, Wertheimer reveals an American Jewish landscape that combines rash disruption and creative reinvention, religious illiteracy and dynamic experimentation.

Finding a Home for the Soul

Finding a Home for the Soul
Author: Catherine Hall Myrowitz
Publisher:
Total Pages: 430
Release: 1995
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

This book consists of 39 interviews with Jews by choice from a variety of backgrounds. each one tells of a very personal journey toward conversion and beyond, to finding a home within Judaism. most of the Converst are women, but Severa men are included as well. many chose orthodox conversins; more liberal branches are also represented.

Jewish Renaissance and Revival in America

Jewish Renaissance and Revival in America
Author: Eitan P. Fishbane
Publisher: UPNE
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781611681925

An anthology that explores religious and social revival in American Judaism in the 19th century