Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Changing Women, Changing Society.
by Dahlia Moore
ISBN 978-1-934843-84-0
250 pp. cloth
$59.00
Order

Publication Date: February, 2012

In One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Dahlia Moore explores the social and cultural forces at play in Israeli society and their effects on the changing status of women.  While delving into some of Israel’s unique and influential forces, such as the army, religious sects, and recent immigration, Moore also broadens her perspective, juxtaposing the status of Israeli women with that of women in other Western societies.  An excellent resource for scholars of gender and gender attitudes looking beyond North America and Europe.

Review:
Delving into the historical realities of one specific society, Israel, Dahlia Moore enlarges our understanding of the interplay of ideologies and reality. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back presents an engaging and in-depth analysis of the forces that have sometimes fostered and more often impeded equality between the sexes in Israel. The book will provide fascinating reading to anyone who wishes to study the status of women – in Israel or around the world.
—Faye J. Crosby, Co-editor of Sex Discrimination in Employment

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History

Jewish Faith in a Changing World: A Modern Introduction to the World and Ideas of Classical Jewish Philosophy.
by Rafael Shucat
ISBN 978-1-936235-68-1
250 pp. cloth
$69.00
Order

Publication Date: January, 2012

Ever since the first encounter between Judaism and the western world in the second century BCE, Jewish thinkers like Maimonides, Gersonides, R. Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, and Rabbi A. I. Kook have grappled with the issues of Jewish faith and modernity. The works they published, which comprise Jewish classical philosophy, were products of the highest intellectual caliber, and no question of faith, no matter how embarrassing or heretical, was overlooked. In this book Raphael Shuchat presents the reader with some of the main and timeless issues of Jewish philosophy over the ages and updates them to twenty-first century thinking, making each issue relevant for the modern reader. This book offers a fresh intellectual outlook on the Jewish faith, and contains a timely message for all religionists and thinkers in the twenty-first century.  It will be of great use to both students and laymen.

Review:

“Shuchat’s keen pedagogical skills are always in evidence.  This is a rich, thoughtful, and enjoyable introduction to Jewish philosophy, aimed at the general reader.”
—Zeev Harvey, chair of the Department of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University

Series: Reference Library of Jewish Intellectual History

The Jews, Instructions for Use: Four Eighteenth-Century Projects for the Emancipation of European Jews.
by Paolo Bernardini, Diego Lucci
ISBN 978-1-936235-74-2
220 pp. cloth
$69.00
Order

Publication Date: December, 2011

This book examines the four most important projects for Jewish emancipation in eighteenth-century Europe. The essays presented in this volume analyze the proposal advanced by the freethinker John Toland in 1714 and three projects of the 1780s, formulated by the state official Christian Wilhelm von Dohm in Frederick the Great’s Prussia, the economist Count D’Arco in Mantua under Habsburg rule, and the Abbe Henri Gregoire in France on the eve of the Revolution. Focusing on the combination of humanitarian and utilitarian arguments and objectives in the proposals to redefine the legal and social status of the Jews, this book is a particularly useful resource for scholars and students interested in the history of Jewish-Gentile relations and the Age of Enlightenment.

Series: Out of the Series

Who is Afraid of Historical Redress: The Israeli Victim / Perpetrator Dichotomy.
by Ruth Amir
ISBN 978-1-934843-85-7
325 pp. cloth
$59.00
Order

Publication Date: October, 2011

With the Holocaust resonating as the "thick background," historical redress processes in Israel render a particularly challenging case. The simultaneous concern the Jewish community has with past, present and future redress campaigns, as both victim and perpetrator, is unique.  Who is Afraid of Historical Redress analyzes three cases of historical redress in Israel: the Yemeni children affair, the tinea capitis irradiations and the claims for the return of native land of the two Christian Palestinian villages of Iqrit and Bir'em.  All three cases were redressed under the juridical edifice of legal thought and action. The outcomes suggest that these processes were insufficient for achieving closure by the victims, atonement by those responsible and reconciliation among social groups.

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History

Justice in the City: An Argument from the Sources of Rabbinic Judaism.
by Aryeh Cohen
ISBN 978-1-936235-64-3
160 pp. cloth
$59.00
Order

Publication Date: September, 2011

Justice in the City argues, based on the Rabbinic textual tradition, especially the Babylonian Talmud, and utilizing French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas’ framework of interpersonal ethics, that a just city should be a community of obligation. That is, in a community thus conceived, the privilege of citizenship is the assumption of the obligations of the city towards Others who are not always in view—workers, the poor, the homeless. These Others form a constitutive part of the city. The second part of the book is a close analysis of homelessness, labor and restorative justice from within the theory that was developed. This title will be useful for scholars and students in Jewish Studies, especially Rabbinic Literature and Jewish Thought, but also for those interested in contemporary urban issues.

Review:

“This is an extremely important, interesting and creative project. Nothing like it really exists. Here is someone who combines erudition in the classical literature of Judaism (especially the Babylonian Talmud) with his passion for social justice, both as an activist and as someone who thinks in highly sophisticated terms about the tradition of political philosophy and of social theory inspired by religious traditions.”
—Charlotte Fonrobert, Taube Center for Jewish Studies, Stanford University

Series: New Perspectives in Post-Rabbinic Judaism

Denial of the Denial, or the Battle of Auschwitz: The Demography and Geopolitics of the Holocaust.
edited by Alfred Kokh, Pavel Polian
ISBN 978-1-936235-34-6
350 pp. cloth
$65.00
Order

Publication Date: May, 2011

Over the decades, the Holocaust has remained a critical issue both historically and politically.  This is due to the modernization of anti-Semitism in the West, where accusations of ritual murder have long been passe and claims that the Holocaust was a hoax are de riguer, and to the government sanctions of anti-Semitism in the East in countries such as Iran.  The purely scholarly problem of determining the number of victims, like other aspects of demography related to the Holocaust, have suddenly become closely embroiled in geopolitics and the phenomenon of Holocaust denial, which is now a context that has been forced upon it.  This book is imbued with these connections and interrelationships.  Avraham, Wolfgang Benz, Sergio Della Pergola, Mark Kupovetsky, Dieter Pohl, Aron Shneer, and the editors contribute their voices to the topic.

Series: Out of the Series

The Twilight of Reason: Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer and Levinas Tested by the Catastrophe.
by Orietta Ombrosi
ISBN 978-1-936235-75-9
200 pp. cloth
$65.00
Order

Publication Date: October, 2011

“Think of the disaster” is the first injunction of thought when faced with the disaster that struck European Jews during the period of Hitler’s rule. Thinking of the disaster means understanding why the Shoah was able to occur in civilized Europe, moulded by humane reason and the values of progress and enlightenment. It means thinking of a possibility for philosophy’s future.

Walter Benjamin, who wrestled with these problems ahead of time, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Emmanuel Levinas had the courage, the strength and the perception – and sometimes simply the desperation – to think about what had happened. Moved by indignation and the desire to testify, they felt the urgent need to address the cries of agony of Auschwitz’s victims in their thinking.

Series: Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah

Alternative and Bio-Medicine in Israel: Boundaries and Bridges.
by Emma Averbuch, Judith Shuval
9781936235865
245 pp. cloth
$72.00
Order

Publication Date: January, 2012

This book explores the macro and micro social contexts in which alternative and bio-medicine co-exist in Israel. It includes a history of alternative health care in Israel and analysis of current policies and dilemmas regarding different forms of health care. It provides an in-depth analysis of medical professionals who have added alternative health care to their repertoire of professional skills in their practice settings in hospitals and community clinics. The heterogeneity of patient populations in Israel makes it possible to explore attitudes of different cultural groups toward alternative health care: these include Jewish immigrants from different countries as well as Bedouin and other Arab groups. Since alternative medicine is a growing part of the overall health care system in many countries, the book provides insights gained from the Israeli experience regarding its co-existence along with conventional medicine - to a broad spectrum of health professionals, policy makers and laypersons.

Review:

"No authors are better positioned than Shuval and Averbach to explore the boundaries and bridges between alternative and biomedicine. They have spent over ten years examining the ways in which these two disparate forms of health care have managed to co-exist in Israel.
With a solid theoretical framework and historical perspective, the book explores the diverse forms of co-existence that have emerged in their country between complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and the biomedical model. These include studies of nurses and midwives practicing CAM, as well as physicians who regularly incorporate it into their treatments. Other Israeli colleagues contribute significantly to the empirical research.
The book will be a critical source for scholars seeking to understand the social processes underlying the current challenges to the previous dominance of the medical profession and the transformation of the health care system."
—Merrijoy Kelner

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History

The Pale God: Israeli Secularism and Spinoza's Philosophy of Culture.
by Gideon Katz
ISBN 978-1-936235-38-4
222 pp. cloth
$65.00
Order

Publication Date: November, 2011

The Pale God examines the relationship between secularism and religious tradition. It begins with a description of the secular options as expressed by Israeli intellectuals, and describes how these options have led to a dead end.  A new option must be sought, and one of the key sources for this option is the works of Spinoza. The author explains that unlike Nietzsche, who discussed "the death of God," Spinoza tried to undermine the authority of religious virtuosos and establish the image of a rational "Pale God." Such changes could channel religious tradition to the basic principles of secular political rule. The author demonstrates that the secular option is inherent in Israeli society, fits the type of secularism that Zionism instilled in the Jewish people, and complements the traditional trends deeply rooted in that society.  

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History

The Teachings of Maimonides.
9781618111487
310 pp. cloth
$49.00
Order

Publication Date: October, 2011

This groundbreaking book was among the most important of those that presented the teachings of Maimonides, as represented by his many published works, as a unified whole, thus bringing about a renaissance in the study of this seminal scholar. The author states, in his original introduction, that “the spirit which animated [Maimonides’] mind and pervades his writings is as much needed now as ever before.” Academic Studies Press is proud to make this important work once again available in printed form.

Series: Classics in Judaica

Creating the Chupah: The Zionist Movement and the Drive for Jewish Communal Unity in Canada, 1898-1921.
by Henry Srebrnik
ISBN 978-1-936235-71-1
225 pp. cloth
$69.00
Order

Publication Date: September, 2011

Creating the Chupah assesses the role of Canadian Zionist organizations in the drive for communal unity within Canadian Jewry in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Two strands of Zionism, represented respectively by the Federation of Zionist Societies of Canada and Poale Zion, were often involved in conflicts that reflected greater disputes. The book also describes Zionist activities within the larger spectrum of Canadian Jewish life. Montreal was at the time the “capital” of Canadian Jewry, but the Jewish communities of Toronto and Winnipeg also play a significant role in these events. By providing a detailed historical examination of the early Canadian Zionist movement, the book makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of 20th century Jewish life in Canada.

Series: Jews in Space and Time

Aggadah and its Interpretation.
by Yosef Tabory
ISBN 978-1-936235-79-7
400 pp. cloth
$89.00
Order

Publication Date: December, 2011

This volume contains fifteen articles, many in Hebrew, by leading scholars. The articles cover a broad range of subjects, from an analysis of biblical narratives as expounded in the midrash and by medieval commentators, through a discussion of Maimonides’ attitude towards midrash and an analysis of talmudic aggadah as expounded by oriental scholars, to polemics concerning the attitude to aggadah in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, and culminating with an analysis of interpretation of aggadah by latter-day talmudic scholars. There are also articles about the essence of aggadah, its literary conventions and its relation to law, and two articles which deal with a passage in the Passover Haggadah. The participants include: E. Eizenman, N. Ilan, G. Blidstein, Y. Blau, M. Bregman, A. Grossman, H. Davidson, C. Horowitz, O. Viskind-Elper, H. Mak, A. Atzmon, A. Kadari, A. Rozenak, M. Shmidman, and J. Tabory.

Series: Out of the Series

The Shtiebelization of Modern Jewry: Studies in Custom and Ritual in the Judaic Tradition: Social-Anthropological Perspectives.
by Simcha Fishbane
ISBN 978-1-936235-77-3
280 pp. cloth
$75.00
Order

Publication Date: September, 2011

Custom and ritual, or their Hebrew equivalent, minhag, have intrigued rabbis and scholars for generations. The majority of the rabbinical works devoted to minhag primarily encompass lists of sources and reporting of old and new customs. Some have explored the historical development of the minhag. Here, Simcha Fishbane treats minhag from a socio-anthropological perspective.  The Shtiebelization of Modern Jewry discusses the theory and model of minhagim using the Mishnah Berurah and the Arukh Hashulkhan, analyzes rabbinic texts concerned with custom, and describes current rituals from a socio-anthropological viewpoint.

Series: Judaism and Jewish Life

Sorrow and Distress in the Talmud.
by Shulamit Valler
ISBN 978-1-936235-36-0
300 pp. cloth
$59.00
Order

Publication Date: August, 2011

Both the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud depict a wide range of sorrowful situations tied to every level of society and to the complexities of human behavior and the human condition. 
The causes and expressions of sorrow amongst the Sages, however, are different from their counterparts amongst common people or women, with descriptions varying between the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud.  In Sorrow and Distress in the Talmud, Valler explores more than 50 stories from both the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmuds, focusing on these issues.

Series: Judaism and Jewish Life

Maimonides as a Biblical Interpreter.
by Sara Klein-Braslavy
ISBN 978-1-936235-28-5
260 pp. cloth
$69.00
Order

Publication Date: June, 2011

Although Maimonides did not write a running commentary on any book of the Bible, biblical exegesis occupies a central place in his writings, particularly in his Guide for the Perplexed . In this book, Klein-Braslavy offers a collection of essays on several key biblical interpretations by Maimonides dealing with: the creation of the world; the story of the Garden of Eden; Jacob's dream of the ladder; King Solomon as an esoterist philosopher; and the problem of exoteric and esoteric biblical interpretations in the Guide. Special attention is paid to Maimonides' methods of interpretation and to his esoteric way of writing. Some of the articles in this volume were originally published in Hebrew, and appear here for the first time in an English translation.

Review:

"Sara Klein-Braslavy is one of our generation's pre-eminent interpreters of Maimonides. This volume makes available to the English reader a selection of her pioneering studies on Maimonides as interpreter of the Bible and on his art of writing. Professor Klein-Braslavy's  important work is thus made available to a much wider audience and makes a substantial contribution to the reader's understanding of this crucial figure."
—Menachem Kellner

Series: Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah

Strictly Kosher Reading: Popular Literature and the Condition of Contemporary Orthodoxy.
by Yoel Finkelman
ISBN 978-1-936235-37-7
250 pp. cloth
$49.00
Order

Publication Date: August, 2011

For centuries, fervently observant Jewish communities have produced thousands of works of Jewish law, thought, and spirituality. But in recent decades, the literature of America's Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] community has taken on brand-new forms: self-help books, cookbooks, monthly magazines, parenting guides, biographies, picture books, even adventure stories and spy novels -- all produced by Haredi men and women for the Haredi reader. What's changed? Why did these works appear, and what do they mean to the community that produces and consumes them? How has the Haredi world, as it seeks fidelity to unchanging tradition, so radically changed what it writes and what it reads? In answering these questions, Strictly Kosher Reading points to a central paradox in contemporary Haredi life. Haredi Jewry sets itself apart, claiming to reject modern secular culture as dangerous and as threatening to everything Torah stands for. But in practice, Haredi popular literature reveals a community thoroughly embedded in contemporary values. Popular literature plays a critical role in helping Haredi Jews to understand themselves as different, even as it shows them to be very much the same.

Series: Jewish Identity in Post Modern Society

The Muselmann at the Water Cooler: A Study of Survival in Extreme and Day-to-Day Situations: The Inside View of a Holocaust Survivor.
by Eli Pfefferkorn
ISBN 978-1-936235-66-7
300 pp. cloth
$69.00
Order

Publication Date: May, 2011

A survivor of concentration camps and the Death March, Eli Pfefferkorn looks back on his Holocaust and post-Holocaust experiences to compare patterns of human behavior in extremis with those of ordinary life.  What he finds is that the concentration camp Muselmann, who has lost his hunger for life and is thus shunned by his fellow inmates on the soup line, bears an eerie resemblance to an office employee who has fallen from grace and whose coworkers avoid spending time with him at the water cooler.  Though the circumstances are unfathomably far apart, the human response to their situations is triggered by self-preservation rather than by calculated evil. By juxtaposing these two separate worlds, Pfefferkorn demonstrates that ultimately the human condition has not changed significantly since Cain slew Abel and the Athenians sentenced Socrates.

Reviews:

''Pfefferkorn's experience and his memoir about it are both unusual in the field of Holocaust studies.  He experienced the Shoah and survived it, played a crucial role in the establishment of the United States Holocaust Museum, and has made substantial academic contributions as well. His memoir is well done, and will make an important contribution to the field of Holocaust studies.''
—John K. Roth, Edward Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College 

“Pfefferkorn has a lively style and a fascinating story to tell: his insights and his perspectives deserve a wide audience.”
—Sir Martin Gilbert, official biographer of Winston Churchill and author of The Second World War (Weidenfeld and Holt, 1989) 

Series: Reference Library of Jewish Intellectual History

Wandering Jew in America.
by Uzi Rebhun
ISBN 978-1-936235-26-1
154 pp. cloth
$60.00
Order

Publication Date: June, 2011

Uzi Rebhun provides the reader with a thorough description and analysis of the multifaceted nature of Jewish internal migration in the United States. Using data from the 1990 and 2000 NJPS, and through up-to-date approaches in the social sciences, he traces changes in the levels, directions, and types of Jewish migration, evaluating the changing social and economic characteristics of the migrants. Finally, Rebhun tests the relationships between migration and Jewish behavior in both the private and public spheres, his findings contributing to the theoretical literature on internal migration and to a better understanding of American ethnicity. The Wandering Jew in America is an excellent resource for students of migration, ethnicity, and sociology of religion as well as those interested in Jewish life in America.

Reviews:

"In The Wandering Jew, Uzi Rebhun has presented the definitive work on American Jews' geographic mobility for our time. Although comprehensive and rich with intriguing data analyses, his prose style makes the exploration of this important dimension of Jewish life readily available, acessible, and engaging. He contends not only with the prevailing theories and images of Jewish mobility, but also discerns fascinating changes over time in the patterns of mobility, in the characteristics of movers and stayers, and in the implications of mobility for Jewish identity and community."
—Steven M. Cohen, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion

"Uzi Rebhun documents changes in the wanderlust of American Jews up through 2001. His research, grounded in current theoretical frameworks, enables us to consider how Jews are similar to and different from other migrants within the United States. Rebhun concludes that American Jews are characterized by increasing and unusually high spatial mobility, which has resulted in high levels of both individual and institutional dispersion. Rebhun spells out the implications of his findings in terms of theoretical insights and suggested directions for future research, as well as for Jewish communal policy.

Rebhun has invested considerable skill in making his scientifically sound and sophisticated analyses, mostly based on the 1990 and 2000-1 Natinal Jewish Population Surveys, very accessible to all readers. Sure to be considered the definitive text on American Jewish spatial mobility for this time period, this work in highly recommended as worthwhile for scholars (of religion, ethnicity, and Jewish studies) and practitioners alike, as well anyone interested in the development of the contemporary American Jewry."
—Harriet Hartman, Professor of Sociology, Rowan University President, Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry

Series: Judaism and Jewish Life

Without Red Strings or Holy Water: Maimonides’ Mishne Torah.
edited by H. Norman Strickman
ISBN 978-1-936235-48-3
250 pp. cloth
$48.00
Order

Publication Date: July, 2011

Maimonides was one of the greatest Jewish personalities of the Middle Ages: a halakhist par excellence, a great philosopher, a political leader of his community, and a guardian of Jewish rights. In 1180 C.E., Maimonides composed his Halakhic magnum opus, the Mishneh Torah, which can be described without exaggeration as the greatest code of Jewish law to be composed in the post-Talmudic era, unique in scope, originality and language.  In addition to dealing with an immense variety of Jewish law, from the laws of Sabbath and festival observances, dietary regulations, and relations between the sexes to the sacrificial system, the construction of the Temple, and the making of priestly garments, the Mishneh Torah represents Maimonides’ conception of Judaism.  Maimonides held that the version of Judaism believed in and practiced by many pious Jews of his generation had been infected by with pagan notions. In the Mishneh Torah, he aimed at cleansing Judaism from these non-Jewish practices and beliefs and impressing upon readers that Jewish law and ritual are free from irrational and superstitious practices.  Without Red Strings or Holy Water explores Maimonides’ views regarding God, the commandments, astrology, medicine, the evil eye, amulets, magic, theurgic practices, omens, communicating with the dead, the messianic era, midrashic literature, and the oral law.  Without Red Strings or Holy Water will be of interest in to all who are interested in the intellectual history of Judaism.

Series: Judaism and Jewish Life

Beyond Political Messianism: The Poetry of Second-Generation Religious Zionist Settlers.
by David C. Jacobson
ISBN 978-1-934843-72-7
250 pp. cloth
$69.00
Order

Publication Date: May, 2011

In recent decades, a group of second-generation religious Zionist West Bank settlers have turned away from the collectivist political messianic ideology of the first generation of settlers and have begun to explore poetry as a mode of individual self-expression. Based on interviews of eight key figures in this new trend and an analysis of their poetry, Beyond Political Messianism: The Poetry of Second-Generation Religious Zionist Settlers tells the story of how they revolutionized the religious Zionist settler culture by moving poetry into the mainstream of that culture and how they introduced into the world of secular Israeli literature images and language drawn from their lives as religiously observant Jews.  Among the themes central to these poets’ concerns are: the formation of a religious identity based on faith and ritual observance, the relationship of the contemporary Jew to the Bible and to traditional Jewish texts, appropriate ways to write about erotic experiences, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Review:

"In lucid writing and armed with depths of understanding and knowledge, David C. Jacobson leads his reader into an exploration of Jewish thought rooted in the teachings of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook and his son Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook and their disciples. Against this background, Jacobson explains the framework of the new poetic phenomenon which has grown at the very heart of the religious Zionist community, an ideological and political movement which largely held back from poetic activity from its inception. The writer invites his reader, indeed all of us, to a challenging experience – of thought and poetry blended together."
—Avinoam Rosenak, Professor of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History

A Coat of Many Colors: Dress Culture in the Young State of Israel.
by Anat Helman
ISBN 978-1-934843-88-8
242 pp. cloth
$59.00
Order

Publication Date: May, 2011

A Coat of Many Colors investigates Israel's first seven years as a sovereign state through the unusual prism of dress. Clothes worn by Israelis in the 1950s reflected political ideologies, economic conditions, military priorities, social distinctions, and cultural preferences, and all played a part in consolidating a new national identity. Based on a wide range of textual and visual historical documents, the book covers both what Israelis wore in various circumstances and what they said and wrote about clothing and fashion. Written in a clear and accessible style that will appeal to the general reader as well as students and scholars, A Coat of Many Colors introduces the reader both to Israel's history during its formative years and to the rich field of dress culture.

Reviews:

"Well-documented with an impressive bibliography, Anat Helman's book, A Coat of Many Colors, is an easy-to-read account and analysis of dress fashions among Israel's immigrants and residents in the country's first years. I enjoyed this book very much—it's fun to read and clearly demonstrates how clothing and dress are integral aspects of social and cultural history."
—Joanne B. Eicher, Editor-in-Chief, Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion

"With her superb eye for detail and her ability to tell a good story well, Anat Helman has produced a marvelous history of the State of Israel's early days by studying its clothing culture. Through this approach Helman tells the history of the fledgling state's economy, illuminates the values of the kibbutz movement, the military, the government and Israeli private life and reveals much about gender roles and the East-West ethnic encounter and does so by examining the dress codes each of these spheres promoted and the ideological underpinnings for such choices. A Coat of Many Colors allows us to read Israeli culture in its formative phase in an entirely new light. This is cultural history at its finest and establishes Anat Helman as one of the most interesting and path-breaking historians of her generation."
—John Efron, Koret Professor of Jewish History, University of California-Berkeley

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History

Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue: Essays in Jewish-Christian Relations.
by David Berger
ISBN 978-1-934843-76-5
450 pp. cloth
$45.00
Order

Publication Date: May, 2010

Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue follows the interaction between Jews and Christians through the ages in all its richness, complexity, and diversity.  This collection of essays analyzes anti-Semitism, perceptions of the Other, and religious debates in the Middle Ages and proceeds to consider modern and contemporary interactions, which are marked by both striking continuity and profound difference.  These include controversies among historians, the promise and challenge of interfaith dialogue, and the explosive exchanges surrounding Mel Gibson’s film on the passion.  This volume will engage scholars, students, and any reader intrigued by one of the longest and most fraught inter-group relationships in history.

Review:

“Few bring to the subject of Jewish-Christian relations the singular blend of insight, erudition, and passion that characterizes David Berger’s Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue; and few collections of essays constitute as coherent and accessible an introduction to a difficult subject as this volume certainly does.  Professor Berger’s studies of the major issues in the encounter between Jews and Christians during the Middle Ages, in the way that modern writers have understood that encounter, and in that encounter’s enduring impact on Jewish-Christian interaction today reflect keen critical scholarship on the one hand, and a resolute commitment to Jewish tradition on the other.  Without compromising either, Berger boldly addresses the thorniest, most sensitive of issues – from the Crusades to the blood libels to the supersessionism of the present pope – with candor, fairness, and wit.  No reader, of whatever faith or critical disposition, will leave this book unrewarded.”
—Jeremy Cohen, Abraham and Edita Spiegel Family Foundation Professor of European Jewish History, Tel Aviv University

"This masterful collection of essays is vintage David Berger – thoughtful, erudite, engaged, broad and insightful. Trained as a medievalist, specializing in the Jewish-Christian debate, Prof. Berger demonstrates that to understand the present relation between the two religions, one must go back in history and see what lessons can be derived from the past. Published over the course of a long career, these articles have stood the test of time and retain their vitality and liveliness, providing a model of careful and independent thinking on oftentimes sensitive subjects."
—Daniel J. Lasker, Norbert Blechner Professor of Jewish Values, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Series: Judaism and Jewish Life

The European Nabokov Web, Classicism and T.S. Eliot: A Textual Interpretation of Pale Fire.
by Robin Davies
ISBN 978-1-936235-65-0
235 pp. cloth
$69.00
Order

Publication Date: June, 2011

Robin Davies here demonstrates that Nabokov’s Pale Fire has a classical unity and represents a direct attack on T.S. Eliot’s philosophical position, particularly as given in The Waste Land and as represented by Eliot’s later tendency for conservatism in literature, politics and religion. After Nabokov was forced into exile from Germany and then France in the 1930s with his young son and Jewish wife, Eliot’s passivism must have seemed to him the very antithesis of survival. The enigmatic Pale Fire and its surface triviality suggested that there could be self-consistent logic within the obvious commentary of Charles Kinbote and John Shade’s poem. Davies places this work in its vast European context, forming a bridge between Russian and European literature which will be appreciated by scholars of both.

Series: Out of the Series

“I am to be read not from left to right, but in Jewish: from right to left”: The Poetics of Boris Slutsky.
by Marat Grinberg
ISBN 978-1934843-73-4
400 pp. cloth
$65.00
Order

Publication Date: January, 2011

Boris Slutsky (1919-1986) is a major original figure of Russian poetry of the second half of the twentieth century whose oeuvre has remained unexplored and unstudied.  The first scholarly study of the poet, Marat Grinberg’s book substantially fills this critical lacuna in the current comprehension of Russian and Soviet literatures.  Grinberg argues that Slutsky’s body of work amounts to a Holy Writ of his times, which daringly fuses biblical prooftexts and stylistics with the language of late Russian Modernism and Soviet newspeak. The book is directed toward readers of Russian poetry and pan-Jewish poetic traditions, scholars of Soviet culture and history, and the burgeoning field of Russian Jewish studies.  Finally, it contributes to the general field of poetics and Modernism.

Reviews:

“Boris Slutsky, according to this brilliant book, accomplished the seemingly impossible: a poet of Soviet times, he reforged the totality of Russian literary culture, from Church Slavonic to Pushkin to Khlebnikov and beyond, within the crucible of Jewish self-understanding.

Marat Grinberg, author of this impressive study, has also accomplished the seemingly impossible. He demonstrates how this supremely Russian poet can and must be read in his totality: 'from right to left,' from beginning to end, and from his desk drawer to Red Square.”  
—David G. Roskies, Sol and Evelyn Henkind Professor of Yiddish Literature, Jewish Theological Seminary. Director, Center for Yiddish Studies, Ben Gurion University of the Negev


“In this erudite and insightful book, Marat Grinberg rescues a great poet from a numbing set of mid-century cliches. No longer a 'war poet,' or 'Soviet diarist,' or sometime Jew, Boris Slutsky emerges as he was in fact—a sometimes playful, sometimes anguished heir to Russian modernism who read Jewish catastrophe through Jewish texts.”
—Alice Nakhimovsky, Professor of Russian and Jewish Studies, Colgate University

Series: Borderlines: Russian and East European - Jewish Studies

Epic and the Russian Novel from Gogol to Pasternak.
by Frederick T. Griffiths, Stanley J. Rabinowitz
ISBN 978-1-936235-53-7
250 pp. cloth
$69.00
Order

Publication Date: April, 2011

The authors read some of the classics in the Russian novelistic tradition against a critique of the Lukacs-Bakhtin view of epic, all the while demonstrating the modernity of epic as a literary mode and arguing how some key Russian novels challenge or outgrow their generic form to re-imagine or re-invent a new, monumental one.  The chapters on Gogol's Dead Souls, Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, Tolstoy's War and Peace, and Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, have major implications for understanding the sweep of Russian literature as a whole, while the final chapter on Stalinist epic, which includes fresh insights on Anna Akhmatova and Nadezhda Mandelstam, considers other literary genres--the memoir and the narrative poem--against the background of the epic tradition.  Teachers, graduate students, undergraduates as well as serious non-academic critics will profit from the original arguments which provide suggestions for re-reading Russian prose generally.

Review:
“Griffiths and Rabinowitz reveal the genre's liveliness, fluidity, and seemingly limitless ability to assert itself in modern letters. Nearly every sentence rewards, and will provoke serious readers to pause and think. The impressive erudition and critical imagination which Griffiths/Rabinowitz combine make one hope that this ancient/modern pair of critical bogatyri will sally forth again.”
—John John M. Kopper, Dartmouth College

Series: Studies in Russian and Slavic Literatures, Cultures and History

Jacob's Ladder: Kabbalistic Allegory in Russian Literature.
by Marina Aptekman
ISBN 978-1-934843-38-3
250 pp. cloth
$70.00
Order

Publication Date: June, 2011

Focusing primarily on the close study of literary works presented in the broad cultural and historical context, Jacob’s Ladder discusses the reflection of kabbalistic allegory in Russian literature and provides a detailed analysis of the evolution of the perception of Kabbalah in Russian consciousness. Aptekman investigates the questions of when, how and why Kabbalah has been used in Russian literary texts from Pre-Romanticism to Modernism and what particular role it played in the larger context of the Russian literary tradition. The correct understanding of this liaison helps the reader to clarify many enigmatic images in Russian literary works of the last two centuries and to understand the roots of a particular cultural falsification that played an important role in the anti-Semitic mythology of the twentieth century.

Reviews:

"Marina Aptekman makes skillful use of rich and diverse source materials, some new and others interpreted in an original and innovative way. This is an important and thought-provoking contribution to the field of Russian-Jewish cultural relations."
—Mikhail Krutikov, associate professor of Slavic Languages and Literature, University of Michigan

“This book is a fascinating study of a largely unexplored subject--the role of Kabbalah in Russian literature from the mid 17th to the 20th century and the larger context in which literature developed. Focusing on images and allegories that derive, directly and indirectly, from Kabbalah, Aptekman shows how and why lt became an important element in mystical freemasonry, romanticism, and modernism. In addition, she limns the alternation between mystical and magical (or occult) interpretations of kabbalah and reveals how the occult interpretation came to be associated with black magic and, eventually, with the myth of a Judaeo-Masonic conspiracy.”
—Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, professor of History, Fordham University

Series: Borderlines: Russian and East European - Jewish Studies

Fifty Writers: An Anthology of 20th Century Russian Short Stories.
translated by Valentina Brougher, Mark Lipovetsky, Frank Miller, edited by Valentina Brougher, Mark Lipovetsky
ISBN 978-1-936235-22-3
800 pp. cloth
$69.00
Order

Publication Date: March, 2011


The largest, most comprehensive anthology of its kind, this volume brings together significant, representative stories from every decade of the 20th century. It includes the prose of officially recognized writers and dissidents, both well-known and neglected or forgotten, plus new authors from the end of the 20th century. The selections reflect the various literary trends and approaches to depicting reality in the 20th century: traditional realism, modernism, socialist realism, and post-modernism.  Taken as a whole, the stories capture every major aspect of Russian life, history and culture in the 20th century.  The rich array of themes and styles will be of tremendous interest to students and readers who want to learn about Russia through the engaging genre of the short story.

Reviews:

"I've seen many English-language anthologies of Russian literature, but this is the first one that I want to give to all my non-specialist friends, so that they can finally understand what is so wonderful about modern Russian literature."
—Eliot Bornstein, Professor of Russian & Slavic Studies at NYU and the author of Overkill: Sex and Violence in Contemporary Russian Popular Culture

"This selection of mainly newly translated stories from the 20th century includes both well-known writers and new voices. It eschews traditional selections from the former category and presents startling writings from the latter. As the editors-translators put it themselves in their lucid introduction, these stories together form a 'mega-novel' about Russia of the previous century from its first revolution to post-perestroika times."
—Irene Masing-Delic, Ohio State University

Series: Cultural Syllabus

Charms of Cynical Reason: Tricksters in Soviet and Post-Soviet Culture.
by Mark Lipovetsky
ISBN 978-1-934843-45-1
250 pp. cloth
$65.00
Order

Publication Date: February, 2011

The impetus for Charms of the Cynical Reason is the phenomenal and little-explored popularity of various tricksters flourishing in official and unofficial Soviet culture, as well as in the post-soviet era. Mark Lipovetsky interprets this puzzling phenomenon through analysis of the most remarkable and fascinating literary and cinematic images of soviet and post-soviet tricksters, including such “cultural idioms” as Ostap Bender, Buratino, Vasilii Tyorkin, Shtirlitz, and others. The steadily increasing charisma of Soviet tricksters from the 1920s to the 2000s is indicative of at least two fundamental features of both the soviet and post-soviet societies. First, tricksters reflect the constant presence of irresolvable contradictions and yawning gaps within the soviet (as well as post-soviet) social universe. Secondly, these characters epitomize the realm of cynical culture thus far unrecognized in Russian studies. Soviet tricksters present survival in a cynical, contradictory and inadequate world, not as a necessity, but as a field for creativity, play, and freedom. Through an analysis of the representation of tricksters in soviet and post-soviet culture, Lipovetsky attempts to draw a virtual map of the soviet and post-soviet cynical reason: to identify its symbols, discourses, contradictions, and by these means its historical development from the 1920s to the 2000s.

Reviews:

“Mark Lipovetsky’s work makes a critical intervention in the study of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian culture. Recent scholarship has made great strides in overcoming the binary categories that once characterized accounts of Soviet society—in most different ways—in both the USSR and the West: official vs. unofficial, conformist vs. dissident, socialist bloc vs. the capitalist West, etc. As works in history, anthropology and sociology have begun to show, life in the Soviet Union was painted in shades of grey, admitting a huge range of economic behaviors, social interactions, and political values located “between and betwixt.” With this book, in one brilliant stroke, Lipovetsky has brought home these insights with regard to the study of Soviet literature and culture. The figure of the trickster, which Lipovetsky finds across an enormous range of important, canonical and beloved works, was at once the embodiment of socialist values and a subversive, concretizing the special forms of identity and social skills required for survival in the Soviet Union. This study shows us in a new manner what was distinctive about Soviet social and cultural history and in what ways it should be seen as a variety of the common story of modernity. Further, it explores how the cultural life of present-day Russia has inherited these structures and patterns. Lipovetsky’s erudition is vast, his critical acumen is impressive, and his writing is superbly nuanced and exciting. In short, this is a remarkable addition to scholarship.”
—Kevin Platt, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at University of Pennsylvania, and author of History in a Grotesque Key: Russian Literature and the Idea of Revolution

“By focusing on the figure of the trickster, Mark Lipovetsky develops a new language for talking about subjectivity and ideology in Soviet and post-Soviet literature. The trickster shows just how inadequate talk of accommodation and resistance is when approaching the discourse of power in modern Russia. It turns out that the famously dualistic Russian culture has plenty of ways to go beyond “either/or,” and the trickster knows them all. Fortunately for us, Lipovetsky knows them as well.”

—Eliot Bornstein, Professor of Russian & Slavic Studies at NYU, and the author of Men without Women: Masculinity and Revolution in Russian Fiction, 1917-1929 and Overkill: Sex and Violence in Contemporary Russian Popular Culture

Series: Cultural Revolutions: Russia in the Twentieth Century

All the Same the Words Don't Go Away: Essays on Authors, Heroes, Aesthetics, and Stage Adaptations from the Russian Tradition.
by Caryl Emerson
ISBN 978-1-934843-81-9
422 pp. cloth
$75.00
Order

Publication Date: December, 2010

All the Same the Words Don't Go Away brings together twenty-five years of essays and reviews, linked loosely by three themes.   The first explores the legacy of Mikhail Bakhtin: his ideas of dialogue and carnival, and the debates ignited by each. The second delves into three "master workers" of the Russian tradition: Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky. In this section, emphasis is comparative: the riddle of Pushkin's life, why "Tolstoy versus Dostoevsky," how Chekhov reads Tolstoy, why Kundera dislikes Doestoevsky and Tolstoy dislikes Shakespeare. The final section addresses the transposition of classic literary texts into other media through musical works by Musorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev. Throughout, the fundamental heroes are Pushkin's Tatiana Larina and Boris Godunov. This volume will be of interest to comparativists and students in interdisciplinary humanities.

Reviews:

"If ever there was a writer whose words should never be allowed to go away, it is Caryl Emerson, our most precious musicoliterary bridge builder.  Having these words collected is like having a party with all your best friends."
—Richard Taruskin, University of California at Berkeley

"This collection illustrates both the astonishing breadth of Caryl Emerson’s interests, and also her ability to return again and again to the same texts from different perspectives.  There is no one writing today in the field of Russian culture more sensitive to its various voices than Emerson.  She has an unparalleled ability to listen to her authors – literary, musical, scholarly, and theoretical – and report what they are up to."
—Donna Orwin, University of Toronto

“For many years Caryl Emerson has been recognized as America's best - most versatile, profound, and energetic - scholar of Russian literary and musical culture.  Her contributions to our understanding of Russian masterpieces have ranged from utterly accurate translations, to scrupulously fair reviews, to performances, to provocative essays, to rigorously researched and argued volumes.  This volume, which should be read cover-to-cover, captures this exceptional range with sections on major Russian thinkers, writers and performers.  I can imagine no better guide to Russian culture than these unfailingly fresh, insightful, and engaging essays.”
—William Mills Todd III, Harvard University

Series: Ars Rossika

The Goalkeeper: The Nabokov Almanac.
by Yuri Leving
ISBN 978-1-936235-19-3
326 pp. cloth
$39.00
Order

Publication Date: October, 2010

The Goalkeeper is a new scholarly almanac devoted to the art of Vladimir Nabokov. Himself an ardent goalkeeper, the author of Lolita viewed soccer as more than a game: "I was less the keeper of a soccer goal than the keeper of a secret" (Speak, Memory). The inaugural collection features contributions from two dozen leading Nabokov scholars worldwide, including academic articles (Neil Cornwell, Gerard de Vries, Samuel Schuman, and others); roundtable discussions (Brian Boyd, Jeff Edmunds, Priscilla Meyer, David Rampton, Leona Toker); interviews (Dmitri Nabokov, Alvin Toffler); archival materials; the Kyoto Nabokov conference report; and book reviews (Pekka Tammi, Zoran Kuzmanovich, Galya Diment). The Nabokov Almanac, edited by Yuri Leving, is affiliated with the Nabokov Online Journal, published since 2007. View the book trailer on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LVIZ0T_1qc. 

Reviews:

"A virtual cornucopia of Nabokoviana! With its impressive diversity of contributors and stylish format, Yuri Leving’s The Goalkeeper promises to be the place to look for the latest on one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers and most stimulating thinkers."
—David Bethea, Vilas Professor of Slavic Languages, University of Wisconsin-Madison / University of Oxford

"The Goalkeeper is a remarkable team effort. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the life and art of Vladimir Nabokov."  
—Leland de la Durantaye, Gardner Cowles Associate Professor of English, Harvard University

"The book that emerges is one of those gifts whose first impact produces in the recipient’s mind a colored image, a blazoned blur, reflecting with such emblematic force the sweet nature of the contributors."
—T.W. Thomas, Professor of Anthropology, Waindell College

Series: Out of the Series

Keys to "The Gift": A Guide to Vladimir Nabokov's Novel.
by Yuri Leving
ISBN 978-1-934843-11-6
564 pp. cloth
$75.00
Order

Publication Date: May, 2011

Yuri Leving's Keys to “The Gift”: A Guide to Vladimir Nabokov's Novel is a new systematization of the main available data on Nabokov's most complex Russian novel, The Gift (1934–1939). From notes in Nabokov's private correspondence to scholarly articles accumulated during the seventy years since the novel’s first appearance in print, the work draws from a broad spectrum of existing material in a succinct and coherent way, as well as providing innovative analyses. The first part of the monograph, "The Novel," outlines the basic properties of The Gift (plot, characters, style, and motifs) and reconstructs its internal chronology. The second part, "The Text," describes the creation of the novel and the history of its publication, public and critical reaction, challenges of the English translation, and post-Soviet reception. Along with annotations to all five chapters of The Gift, the commentary provides insight into problems of paleography, featuring unique textological analysis of the novel based on the author's study of the archival copy of the manuscript.

Reviews:

“Yuri Leving’s meticulous dissection of Nabokov’s last Russian novel, The Gift, fully vindicates his claim for it as ‘one of the masterpieces of twentieth century modernist literature,’ fit to stand beside Joyce's Ulysses for the allusive richness of its content and the musicality of its prose. In seven richly fact-filled chapters, Leving has unearthed a wealth of historical, chronological, biographical, textological, literary critical and bibliographical material to bolster his case, and like a scrupulous archeologist, uncovers the multiple layers of Nabokov's complex creation to illustrate and illuminate its artistic essence. In its masterly marshaling of evidence, Leving’s work is unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon.”
—Michael Scammell, the author of Solzhenitsyn, A Biography (1984) and Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual (2010), the translator of The Gift into English

“Prof. Yuri Leving’s book on Nabokov’s magisterial The Gift is a masterpiece in itself, the last – and definitive – word on the subject.”
—Alexander Theroux, the author of Darconville’s Cat (1980) and Laura Warholic (2007), the literary critic of The Wall Street Journal

Series: Studies in Russian and Slavic Literatures, Cultures and History

Vladimir Soloviev and the Spiritualization of Matter.
by Oliver Smith
ISBN 978-1-936235-17-9
308 pp. cloth
$59.00
Order

Publication Date: November, 2010

While he is widely acknowledged as the most important Russian thinker of the nineteenth century, Vladimir Soloviev’s place in the landscape of world philosophy nevertheless remains uncertain. Approaching him through a single synoptic lens, this book foregrounds his unique envisioning of the interaction between humanity and the material world. By investigating the development of a single theme in his work—his idea of the "spiritualization of matter", the "task" of humanity—Smith constructs a rounded picture of Soloviev’s overall importance to an understanding of nineteenth-century thought, as well as to modern theology and philosophy. The picture that emerges is of a writer whose contribution to a Christian philosophy of matter resonates with many of the religious debates of modernity.


Reviews:

"Oliver Smith’s Vladimir Soloviev and the Spiritualization of Matter is one of the best recent works in English about Soloviev, indeed about Russian philosophy in general. It tackles complex philosophical concepts with unusual clarity, lucidity and cohesion, exploring the evolution of Soloviev’s philosophical system, and offering detailed and nuanced analyses of the relationships of Soloviev's ideas with those of his great predecessors (Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Jewish Kabbala etc.)."
—Lazar Fleishman, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Stanford University

"This book is a welcome contribution to a growing body of literature on Russian sophiology. Weaving his narrative around Soloviev’s spiritual and intellectual biography, Oliver Smith offers a nuanced and erudite account of Soloviev’s metaphysics of all-unity. Smith successfully shows that at the core of Soloviev’s metaphysical project was a consistent integration of spiritual and material aspects of reality, epitomized in the incarnation."
—Paul Gavrilyuk, Associate Professor of Historical Theology, University of St Thomas, Saint Paul, Minnesota

"Intelligently, poignantly, and with clear sight, Smith gives us a portrait of Soloviev and his refusal, indeed, his 'inability to think the divine without the human'; I myself could formulate no better description of this important Russian religious writer, who throughout his multi-faceted career as poet, philosopher, teacher, and journalist sought ever to articulate the ways in which matter can, is, and must be spiritualized. We are all the better for Soloviev's various writings on the subject, and now for Smith's cogent analysis of them all."
—Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Series: Studies in Russian and Slavic Literatures, Cultures and History

Bieganski: The Brute Polack Stereotype in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture.
by Danusha Goska
ISBN 978-1-936235-15-5
344 pp. cloth
$65.00
Order

Publication Date: July, 2010

In this controversial study, Goska exposes one stereotype of Poles and other Eastern Europeans. In the "Bieganski" stereotype, Poles exhibit the qualities of animals. They are strong, stupid, violent, fertile, anarchic, dirty, and especially hateful in a way that more evolved humans are not. Their special hatefulness is epitomized by their Polish anti-Semitism.  Bieganski discovers this stereotype in the mainstream press, scholarship, film, in Jews' self-definition, and in responses to the Holocaust. Bieganski's twin is Shylock, the stereotype of the crafty, physically inadequate, moneyed Jew. The final chapters of the book are devoted to interviews with American Jews, which reveal that Bieganski—and Shylock—are both alive and well among those who have little knowledge of Poles or Poland.

Reviews:

"Stereotypes of Poles have been commonplace in Western society. Danusha V. Goska presents a comprehensive overview of such images in a balanced fashion. She offers no apologetic for genuine instance of Polish anti-Semitism. But she also exposes those rooted in outright prejudice with no foundation in fact. An important contribution to improved Polish-Jewish understanding."
—John T. Pawlikowski, OSM, Ph.D., professor of Social Ethics, Director, Catholic-Jewish Studies Program Catholic Theological Union Chicago

"A powerful, provocative, ultimately profound work of scholarship regarding the stereotypification of Poles and its implications not only for Polish-Jewish relations in the Old World and the New, but also for anyone wishing to fathom the interworkings of class and ethnicity in an America that has all too often fallen short of its promise."
—James P. Leary, folklorist, University of Wisconsin

"In this most important work, Dr. Goska's style incorporates those necessary ingredients that justify writing as an art form: her grammar is impeccable, even while the pathways of her sentences can be unpredictable. Her imagery is robust, but yet it never gets in the way of the underlying premises of her arguments. Moreover, her thinking is crisp, and her knowledge of this very sensitive topic is thoroughly evident. Indeed, the reader cannot help but be persuaded by the logical unfolding of the positions she brings to this necessary work. Above all, she establishes that all-important trust in her readers: that while she may jostle their previously-held constructs, she will also protect them on a literary journey that could be harrowing and dangerous in lesser hands."
—Dr. Michael Herzbrun, Rabbi Temple Emanu-El, Rochester, NY

Series: Jews of Poland