The Horizontal Society: Understanding the Covenant and Alphabetic Judaism (vol 1 and vol 2).
ISBN 978-1-936235-04-9
676 pp.
$0.00
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Publication Date: March, 2010

The Horizontal Society is an exposition of rabbinic thought as exemplified by Maimonides.The thought streams of Greece, Rome, and Christendom serve as a contrast. This work is in the Hebrew rhetorical tradition of melisa. The main text in five sections-—The God of Israel, The Books of Israel, The Governance of Israel, The Memory of Israel, and The Folly of Israel—focuses on these core matters. It includes numerous references to orient the reader. The mode is similar to the author's previous work, such as Golden Doves with Silver Dots: Semiotics and Textuality in Rabbinic Tradition, interacting with the latest thought from today's academy.
This book illustrates the horizontal organization of the Jewish people. Other social organization is based on hierarchy. Two principles made this difference possible for Israel. First, the Hebrew Scriptures alone propose that every human being is created in the image of God.This necessitates the absolute equality of every human being. Second, the Sinai covenant establishes the Law as the supreme authority. Whereas in other societies, might is the source of authority, in Judaism authority is limited by the Law. These principles were summarized by the last Prophet of Israel: "Had not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously…, profaning the covenant of our fathers?" (Mal 2:10). There is a subdivided bibliography of forty pages, including both Jewish and "Western" sources.The scholarly apparatus includes indices of terms, names, and subjects. There are also seventy appendices of interest to rabbinic readership.

Series: Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah

Another Way, Another Time: Religious Inclusivism and the Sacks Chief Rabbinate.
by Meir Persoff
ISBN 978-1-934843-90-1
450 pp. cloth
$65.00
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Publication Date: March, 2010

 British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks launched his tenure of office in 1991 with the aim of an inclusivist Decade of Jewish Renewal. Within a few years – fulfilling his installation prediction that ‘I will have failures, but I will try again, another way, another time’ – he was attracting calls, from opponents and supporters, for his resignation and the abolition of his office. Reviewing Sacks’ early writings and pronouncements on the theme of inclusivism, Persoff demonstrates how, repeatedly, the Chief Rabbi said ‘irreconcilable things to different audiences’ and how, in the process, he induced his kingmaker and foremost patron to declare of Anglo-Jewry: ‘We are in a time warp, and fast becoming an irrelevance in terms of world Jewry.’ Citing support from a variety of sources, Another Way, Another Time contends that the Chief Rabbinate has indeed reached the end of the road and explores other paths to the leadership of a pluralistic – and, ideally, inclusivist – community.

Series: Judaism and Jewish Life

Judaism in a Post-Halakhic Age.
by Jack J. Cohen
ISBN 978-1-93484-392-5
200 pp. cloth
$35.00
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Publication Date: March, 2010

Judaism in a Post-Halakhic Age tackles the following questions: 1. What is Halakhah, and what role has it played in the creative survival of the Jewish people for two millennia? 2. Why is Halakhah no longer capable of functioning as it has until now? 3. What sort of polity and religious culture can be recommended to replace the Halakhic tradition in an era of freedom, democracy, scientific research and religious pluralism?  The author, however, out of his great respect for the Halakhic culture, asks what it can still contribute to Jewish civilization and the advance of a united humanity.

Review:
 "Venerable Reconstructionist thinker Jack Cohen here offers a thoughtful, balanced, and morally sensitive viewpoint on the place of halakhah in a contemporary Judaism. His well-reasoned positions will have to be taken seriously as non-Orthodox Jews both in Israel and the diaspora struggle with this key issue."

        --Art Green, Irving Brudnick Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Hebrew College

Series: Reference Library of Jewish Intellectual History

The Scroll of Secrets: The Hidden Messianic Vision of R. Nachman of Breslav.
by Zvi Mark
ISBN 978-1-934843-93-2
350 pp. cloth
$49.00
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Publication Date: April, 2010

 Concealed for two centuries and known only to a select individual in each generation, the Scroll of Secrets is the hidden Messianic vision of R. Nachman of Bratslav. Despite being written in an encoded language, with acronyms and abbreviations, after a clarification and cautious reconstruction of what can be decoded, the reader is presented with an exalted Messianic vision. The book marks a turning point in our knowledge of R. Nachman's spiritual world, and initiates a renewed discussion of an intriguing Hasidism that excites scholars and broad circles within the Jewish and Israeli publics.  The reader is presented with a sublime and enticing vision of the eschatological End of Days that contains song and prayer, Torah, melodies and longings, and love and compassion for every man.

Series: Reference Library of Jewish Intellectual History

A Partisan from Vilna.
by Rachel Margolis, edited by Marjorie Margolis
ISBN 978-1-934843-91-8
520 pp. cloth
$40.00
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Publication Date: April, 2010

 A Partisan of Vilna is the memoir of Rachel Margolis, the sole survivor of her family, who escaped from the Vilna Ghetto with other members of the resistance movement, the FPO (United Partisan Organization), and joined the Soviet partisans in the forests of Lithuania to sabotage the Nazis. Beginning with an account of Rachel’s life as a precocious, privileged girl in pre-war Vilna, it goes on to detail life in the Vilna Ghetto, including the development and struggles of the FPO against the Nazis. Finally, the book chronicles the escape of a group of FPO members into the forest of Belarus, where Rachel became a partisan fighter. Rather than “keep house” back at their bunker like other female partisans, Rachel demanded assignments to active duty alongside the men. Going on military assignments, Rachel burned down a bridge, blew up railroad tracks, and helped bring in food supplies for her fellow partisans.  The book opens with an introductory essay by renowned historian, Antony Polonsky.

Review:

"Arguably the most extraordinary Holocaust survivor of our time, Rachel Margolis left a safe hiding place to join her (doomed) family in the Vilna Ghetto, then left the ghetto to join the anti-Nazi partisans in the forests. After the collapse of the USSR, she helped build a small Holocaust museum, then rediscovered, transcribed and published the lost diary of a Christian Pole who witnessed tens of thousands of murders of Jews by enthusiastic Lithuanian nationalists. In her mid eighties, she published the Russian original of this memoir. The local anti-Semitic press focused on one paragraph, took it out of context, and then – in May 2008, armed police came looking for Rachel and a fellow woman partisan survivor. Currently living in Israel and prevented from returning to her native Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania) by the prosecutors’ campaign, she is a survivor who can’t return home. This book is the reason why. In publishing it in English, Academic Studies Press does a great service to both the dwindling community of Holocaust survivors, and the growing community of readers who just want to know."

--Dovid Katz, Professor of Judaic Studies, Vilnius University; Director of Research, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, www.HolocaustInTheBaltics.com, www.DovidKatz.net

Series: Jews of Poland

Vixens Disturbing Vineyards: The Embarrassment and Embracement of Scriptures - A Festschrift Honoring Harry Fox Le'Veit Yoreh.
edited by Aubrey Glazer, Justin Lewis, Tzemah Yoreh
ISBN 978-1-934843-41-3
720 pp. cloth
$88.00
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Publication Date: April, 2010

Embarrassment and embracement are two moments in the reading, misreading and re-reading of scriptures, defined broadly to include both canonical and non-canonical texts. Despite what Harold Bloom calls our "belatedness" in this process, every reading community has its way of confronting that moment of embarrassment so as to re-embrace or reject its implications. These implications are especially strong in religious cultures with a nomian tradition. By entering into that very tension between what Fox calls embarrassment and re-embracement, every reader recognizes the anxiety of a narrative's influence upon a community. Papers dealing with different aspects of this phenomenon are part of a festschrift honoring Professor Harry Fox (LeBeit Yoreh) the originator of this seminal idea in the transmission of texts. Contributors include such scholars as Yaakov Elman, Simcha Fishbane, the late Chana Safrai and Tirzah Meacham as well as many students, colleagues and friends of Professor Fox.

Series: Judaism and Jewish Life

Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue: Essays in Jewish-Christian Relations.
by David Berger
ISBN 978-1-934843-76-5
350 pp. cloth
$45.00
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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 analyze anti-Semitism, perceptions of the Other, and religious debates in the Middle Ages and proceed 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

Series: Judaism and Jewish Life

Answering a Question with a Question. Judaism and Contemporary Psychoanalysis.
edited by Lewis Aron, Libby Henik
ISBN 978-1-934843-37-6
500 pp. cloth
$49.00
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Publication Date: May, 2010

In Jewish tradition it is incumbent upon every generation to attempt to make meaning of its history. Until now, no single book has brought together contemporary writers to address the interface of Jewish thought and psychoanalysis. In Judaism and Contemporary Psychoanalysis, the relevance of the Jewish interpretive tradition to the expanding theoretical world of psychoanalysis and its influence on psychoanalysis and the richness of psychoanalytic orientations regarding the intra-psychic and interpersonal are brought together. This collection of articles from the international psychoanalytic community has reconnected contemporary psychoanalysis and Jewish thought to influence, enrich, and challenge each other.

Series: Judaism and Jewish Life

Holy Russia, Sacred Israel: Jewish-Christian Encounters in Russian Religious Thought.
by Dominic Rubin
ISBN 978-1-934843-79-6
400 pp. cloth
$55.00
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Publication Date: May, 2010

 Holy Russia, Sacred Israel examines how Russian religious thinkers, both Jewish and Christian, conceived of Judaism, Jewry and the ‘Old Testament’ philosophically, theologically and personally at a time when the Messianic element in Russian consciousness was being stimulated by events ranging from the pogroms of the 1880s, through two Revolutions and World Wars, to exile in Western Europe. An attempt is made to locate the boundaries between the Jewish and Christian, Russian and Western, Gnostic-pagan and Orthodox elements in Russian thought in this period. The author reflects personally on how the heritage of these thinkers – little analyzed or translated in the West – can help Orthodox (and other) Christians respond to Judaism (including ‘Messianic Judaism’), Zionism, and Christian anti-Semitism today.

Series: Reference Library of Jewish Intellectual History

The Jewish Conundrum in World History.
by Alexander Militarev
ISBN 978-1-934843-43-7
250 pp. cloth
$39.00
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Publication Date: July, 2010

 Following what may be conventionally called the Jewish ethno-cultural model and tracing its performance throughout history, Alexander Militarev’s book is the first scholarly attempt to apply a synthetic, comprehensive approach to the Jewish phenomenon – an alternative to the metaphysical and religious ones – and to evaluate it in the comparative context. In highlighting the unique and disproportionately great Jewish contributions (and the recent Russian Jewish contribution, in particular) to the human civilization, it poses as its main question: “Why the Jews?” Militarev dedicates his book to the analysis of the Jewish phenomenon, its manifold reasons and consequences, couched as an essay replete with unexpected conclusions and debatable hypotheses. Laying bare the “kitchen” of scholarly research, Militarev embarks on a scholarly adventure akin to a film-noir who-dunnit, complete with intrigue, the need for stringent self-control, inexorable doubts, the thrill of the chase after the enigma’s solution.

Series: Reference Library of Jewish Intellectual History

Canadian Jews in the 21st Century: Identity and Demography.
by Jack Jedwab
ISBN 978-1-934843-75-8
200 pp. cloth
$35.00
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Publication Date: June, 2010

How many Jews are there in Canada? The answer depends on how being Jewish is defined, and by whom. Canada’s national statistical agency collects data on religion and on ethnic origin and thus offers the possibility of establishing an official number. While most Canadian Jews declare both their religion and ethnicity as Jewish, an important number define themselves as either one or the other. Underlying such declarations is an ongoing debate about what it means to be ethnically Jewish. What does the use of ethnicity as a basis for determining community membership imply in defining Canadian Jewish identity? Using census and survey data Canadian Jews in the 21st century: Identity and Demography explores the meaning of ethnicity for Canadian Jewry.

Series: Jewish Identity in Post Modern Society

Beyond Political Messianism: The Poetry of Second Generation Religious Zionist Settlers.
by David C. Jacobson
ISBN 978-1-934843-72-7
250 pp. cloth
$45.00
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Publication Date: June, 2010

 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 fifty works by these poets, 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 writing into the mainstream of that culture, and how they introduced into the world of secular Israeli literature images and language styles 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 experience, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History

Zionist Arabesques: Modern Landscapes, Non-Modern Texts.
by Hadas Yaron
ISBN 978-1-934843-78-9
250 pp. cloth
$39.00
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Publication Date: June, 2010

Zionist Arabesques is an ethno-historical account of the landscape of the Jezreel Valley, Israel and explores how the modern landscape of the valley has been created both physically and symbolically from the perspective of both local and large scale processes. It addresses not only the guiding principles of modern Israeli agriculture, its connection to Zionist settlement and ideology, and the evolvement of the Arab-Jewish conflict but also examines the relevance of law, State policies and sector based politics, being a mixture of archival and ethnographic material composed with a unique textual structure. The book is useful for those interested in Zionism and the Israeli Palestinian conflict, as well in experimental ways of writing.  

Reviews
 “… a compelling, original and well written piece of scholarship, and also a work of real passion and subtlety.

Zionist Arabesques focus(es) on the material, experienced reality of Zionism, its phenomenology in the Israeli/Palestinian landscape. Evil or bad intentions lose meaning and instead we focus on grids and trees, cows, borders, documents, narratives. In this way, the impact of Zionism gains a new meaning: a specific form of interaction of the modern and the non-modern (in the contradictory aspirations and worldviews of Zionist settlers between spatial geometry, markets and romanticism), meeting yet another form of interaction of the modern and non-modern (in the experience of the Palestine/Israeli landscape).

As such, Zionist Arabesques should be of interest to a wide audience, including not only anthropologists but also historians, critical theorists and the general public interested in the fates of Zionism – or of modernism.”
-- Reviel Netz, Professor of Classics, Stanford University

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History

Edicts and Verdicts: Jewish Life in 19th Century Palestine as Reflected in the Legal and Rabbinical Writings of the Period.
by Haim Katz
ISBN 978-1-936235-00-1
300 pp. cloth
$59.00
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Publication Date: July, 2010

Tackling the history of the Jews in Palestine from a new and unusual angle, Haim Katz explores Jewish society in Eretz Israel in the 19th century as it is reflected in the legal minutia of every day life: verdicts and decisions; Halakhic edicts; Rabbinical letters as well as books that emanated from the nascent printing industry of Jewish society in Palestine at that time.

Katz divides his book into three different courses of societal development.  First is the spiritual struggle of Jewish society grappling with two opposing Messianic philosophies, the shadow of active and sometime successful missionaries, and the bitter internal conflict relating to modern education. The material struggle probes the demographics of Jewish society, its land purchases and trade, the rampant poverty of the Jews in Palestine, the inequitable Halukkah system, and the discord this engendered. Finally, Katz examines the social struggle and the conflict between Jews and Gentiles, Sephardim and Ashkenazim, and the general intra-communal tensions of a small society of opinionated people.

Series: Judaism and Jewish Life

Sex Rewarded, Sex Punished: A Study of the Status 'Female Slave' in Early Jewish Law.
by Diane Kriger
ISBN 978-1-934843-48-2
300 pp. cloth
$48.00
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Publication Date: July, 2010

A masterful intersection of Bible Studies, Gender Studies, and Rabbinic law, Diane Kriger explores the laws pertaining to female slaves in Jewish law. Comparing Biblical strictures with later Rabbinic interpretations as well as contemporary Greco-Roman and Babylonian codes of law, Kriger establishes a framework whereby a woman’s sexual identity also indicates her legal status. With sensitivity to the nuances in both ancient laws and ancient languages, Kriger adds greatly to our understanding of gender, slave status, and the matrilineal principle of descent in the Ancient Near East.

Series: Judaism and Jewish Life

Anti-Semitism on the Campus: Past and Present.
by Eunice G. Pollack
ISBN 978-1-934843-82-6
450 pp. cloth
$65.00
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Publication Date: August, 2010

 Anti-Semitism on the Campus: Past & Present, edited by Eunice G. Pollack is the first volume in a multidisciplinary series on anti-Semitism in America to be published by Academic Studies Press. Eighteen leading scholars explore the roots and manifestations of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism at American, British, and Canadian colleges and universities over the course of the 20th century and the responses to them. Topics range from the intensification of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism on individual campuses and the anti-Israel divestment and boycott movements, to discrimination against Jewish faculty, students, and organizations, and students’ exposure to anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism through popular culture.

Series: Anti-Semitism in America

Torah in the Observatory: Gersonides, Maimonides, Song of Songs.
by Menachem Kellner
ISBN 978-1-934843-80-2
300 pp. cloth
$49.00
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Publication Date: August, 2010

 Rabbi Levi ben Gershom (Ralbag, Gersonides; 1288-1344), one of medieval Judaism's most original thinkers, wrote about such diverse subjects as astronomy, mathematics, Bible commentary, philosophical theology, "technical" philosophy, logic, Halakhah, and even satire. In his view, however, all these subjects were united as part of the Torah. Influenced profoundly by Maimonides, Gersonides nevertheless exercised greater rigor than Maimonides in interpreting the Torah in light of contemporary science, more conservative in his understanding of the nature of the Torah's commandments, and more optimistic about the possibility of wide-spread philosophical enlightenment.

Gersonides was a witness to several crucial historical events, such as the expulsion of French Jewry of 1306 and the "Babylonian Captivity" of the Papacy.  Collaborating with prelates in his studies of astronomy and mathematics, he had an entree into the Papal court at Avignon.  Revered among Jews as the author of a classic commentary on the latter books of the Bible, Kellner portrays Gersonides as a true Renaissance Man, whose view of Torah is vastly wider and more open than that held by many of those who treasure his memory.

Series: Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah

State Ideology in Commercial TV: Lessons from the Israeli Case.
by Noam Yuran
ISBN 978-1-934843-83-3
250 pp. cloth
$39.00
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Publication Date: September, 2010

 Within a relatively short span of time, the first commercial TV channel in Israel has rendered the well established state control of television obsolete. However, this triumph of commercial television does not represent a renouncement of the familiar Etatist ethos. It would appear that commercial television owes its success to its ability to reformulate this ethos in new terms, proper to a neo-liberal age. Rather than a liberating itself from state ideology, commercial television has become its central arena. Yuran analyzes this new form of ideological articulation and explores the conceptual relation between ideology and the medium of television.

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History

Myticism in Modern Hebrew Poetry.
by Hamutal Bar-Yosef
ISBN 978-1-936235-01-8
300 pp. cloth
$55.00
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Publication Date: October, 2010

 Challenging the notion that Jewish mysticism ceased to exist in the Hassidic enclaves of early nineteenth century Europe, Hamutal Bar-Yosef delves into the mystical elements of 20th century Israeli literature.  Exploring themes such as unity, death, and sex, Bar-Yosef traces the influence and the trends towards secular mysticism found in Russian, Yiddish, and early Hebrew writers, and examines the impact of Zionism in creating a modern, living mystical literature.  An exciting new text for anyone studying modern Hebrew literature.

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Changing Women, Changing Society.
by Dahlia Moore
ISBN 978-1-934843-84-0
250 pp. cloth
$39.00
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Publication Date: October, 2010

 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.

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History

Who is Afraid of Historical Redress: The Israeli Victim / Perpetrator Dichotomy.
by Ruth Amir
ISBN 978-1-934843-85-7
325 pp. cloth
$48.00
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Publication Date: November, 2010

 With the Holocaust resonating as the "thick background", historical redress processes in Israel render a particularly challenging case. The simultaneous concern 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

German Jewry Between Hope and Despair, 1871-1933.
by Nils Roemer
ISBN 978-1-934843-87-1
400 pp. cloth
$49.00
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Publication Date: December, 2010

 German Jewry Between Hope and Despair, 1871-1933 provides important interpretations of this tumultuous and conflict ridden period and invites readers to partake in the ongoing debate over modern Jewish identities and cultures. Marked at the outset by emancipation and the emergence of modern anti-Semitism, the period witnessed a profound transformation of Jewish social, political, and religious life culminating in the renaissance of Jewish cultures at the eve of the Holocaust. This textbook unites studies that inform to this day our understanding of this historical epoch as well as important historical revisions. Amongst the many contributions are texts by Michael Brenner, Willi Goetschel, Marion Kaplan, George L. Mosse, Peter Pulzer, and Till van Rahden.

Series: Jews in Space and Time

A Ration of Fashion: Dress Culture in the Young State of Israel.
by Anat Helman
ISBN 978-1-934843-88-8
300 pp. cloth
$42.00
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Publication Date: December, 2010

 A Ration of Fashion 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 Ration of Fashion introduces the reader both to Israel's history during its formative years and to the rich field of dress culture.

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History