Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: “The State of Jewish Ideas: Towards a New Jewish Canon”
I. Jewish Politics and the Public Square
1. Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution, 1985
Essay: William Galston
2. George Steiner, “Our Homeland, the Text,” 1985; Judith Butler, “Judith Butler’s Remarks to Brooklyn College on BDS,” 2013
Essay: Julie Cooper
3. Jonathan Woocher, Sacred Survival: The Civil Religion of American Jews, 1986
Essay: Sylvia Fishman
4. Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949, 1987; and The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 2004;Ari Shavit, “Survival of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris,” 2004 and “Lydda, 1948,” 2013
Essay: Daniel Kurtzer
5. Irving (Yitz) Greenberg vs. Meir Kahane, Public Debate at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, 1988
Essay: Shaul Magid
6. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Eliezer Goldman (ed.), Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State, 1992
Essay: Joshua Shanes
7. Israeli Supreme Court Part 1: Israeli Knesset Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, 1992; Aharon Barak, “A Judge on Judging: The Role of a Supreme Court in a Democracy,” January 2002
Essay: Yigal Mersel
8. Aharon Lichtenstein, “On the Murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin z”l,” 1995
Essay: David Wolkenfeld
9. Aviezer Ravitzky, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism, 1996
Essay: Yehuda Magid
10. Israeli Supreme Court Part 2: The Israeli Supreme Court sitting as the High Court of Justice, Horev v. Minister of Transportation, 1997; The Israeli Supreme Court sitting as the High Court of Justice: Baruch Marzel v. Jerusalem District Police Commander, Mr. Aharon Franco, 2002
Essay: Donniel Hartman
11. Samuel G. Freedman, Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry, 2000
Essay: Noam Pianko
12. Breaking the Silence Testimonies, Founded in 2004
Essay: Sarah Anne Minkin
13. Steven M. Cohen and Jack Wertheimer, “Whatever Happened to the Jewish People?,” 2006
Essay: Yehuda Kurtzer
14. Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur, Torat HaMelekh, 2009
Essay: Hillel Ben-Sasson
15. Moshe Halbertal, “The Goldstone Illusion,” 2009
Essay: Elana Stein Hain
16. Peter Beinart, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” 2010
Essay: Sara Yael Hirschhorn
17. Daniel Gordis, “When Balance Becomes Betrayal” and Sharon Brous, “Lowering the Bar,” 2012
Essay: Yehuda Kurtzer
18. Matti Friedman, “An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth,” 2014
Essay: Rachel Fish
II. History, Memory and Narrative
1. David Hartman, “Auschwitz or Sinai?,” 1982
Essay: Rachel Sabath Beit Halachmi
2. Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, 1982
Essay: Alexander Kaye
3. Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World, 1982
Essay: Benjamin Pollock
4. Robert M. Cover, “The Supreme Court, 1982 Term—Foreword: Nomosand Narrative,” 1983
Essay: Christine Hayes
5. Kahan Commission (Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut), 1983
Essay: Yehuda Kurtzer
6. Amos Oz, In the Land of Israel, 1983
Essay: Wendy Zierler
7. David Biale, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History, 1986
Essay: Judah Bernstein
8. Elie Wiesel, Acceptance Speech, on the Occasion of the Award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, 1986
Essay: Claire E. Sufrin
9. Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, 1986
Essay: Sarah Cushman
10. Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, “The Third Great Cycle of Jewish History,” 1987
Essay: Joshua Feigelson
11. Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust, 1993; Yaffa Eliach, There Once Was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok, 1998
Essay: Yehuda Kurtzer
12. Haym Soloveitchik, “Rupture and Reconstruction,” 1994
Essay: Yehuda Kurtzer
13. Naomi Seidman, “Elie Wiesel and the Scandal of Jewish Rage,” 1996
Essay: Erin Leib Smokler
14. Dabru Emet, New York Times, 2000
Essay: Marcie Lenk
15. Jonathan Sarna, American Judaism: A History, 2004
Essay: Marc Dollinger
16. David Weiss Halivni, Breaking the Tablets: Jewish Theology After the Shoah,2007
Essay: Daniel H. Weiss
17. Ruth Wisse, “How Not to Remember and How Not to Forget,” 2008
Essay: Dara Horn
18. Yossi Klein Halevi, Like Dreamers, 2013
Essay: Hannah Kober
III. Religion and Religiosity
1. Joseph Soloveitchik,Halakhic Man, 1983
Essay: Shlomo Zuckier
2. Yehoshua Yeshaya Neuwirth, Shemirath Shabbath Kehilchathah, 1984
Essay: David Bashevkin
3. David Hartman, A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism, 1985
Essay: David Ellenson
4. The Complete Artscroll Siddur, 1984
Essay: David Zvi Kalman
5. Neil Gillman, Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew, 1990; Eugene Borowitz, Renewing the Covenant: A Theology for the Postmodern Jew, 1991
Essay: Michael Marmur
6. Rachel Adler “In Your Blood, Live: Re-visions of a Theological Purity,” 1993
Essay: Gail Labovitz
7. Rodger Kamenetz, The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet’s Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India, 1994
Essay: Or Rose
8. Avivah Gottleib Zornberg, Genesis: The Beginning of Desire, 1995
Essay: Shira Hecht-Koller
9. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Susannah Heschel (ed.), Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, 1996
Essay: William Plevan
10. Noam Zion and David Dishon, A Different Night: The Family Participation Haggadah, 1997
Essay: Emily Filler
11. Mendel Shapiro, “Qeri’at HaTorah by Women: A Halakhic Analysis,” 2001
Essay: Tova Hartman
12. Jonathan Sacks, Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, London: Continuum,2002
Essay: Michal Raucher
13. Rav Shagar, Broken Vessels, 2004
Essay: Tomer Persico
14. Arthur Green, Radical Judaism: Rethinking God and Tradition, 2010; Daniel Landes, “Hidden Master,” 2010; Arthur Green and Daniel Landes, “God, Torah, and Israel: An Exchange,” 2011
Essay: Samuel Hayim Brody
15. Elie Kaunfer, Empowered Judaism: What Independent Minyanim Can Teach Us About Building Vibrant Jewish Communities, 2010
Essay: Shawn Landres and Joshua Avedon
IV. Identities and Communities
1. Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Letter to the Jewish Community of Teaneck, 1981
Essay: Jonathan Sarna
2. Blu Greenberg, On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition, 1981
Essay: Rachel Gordan
3. Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, 1981; Alan Lew, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation, 2003
Essay: Joshua Ladon
4. Evelyn Torton Beck (ed.), Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology, 1982; Susannah Heschel (ed.), On Being a Jewish Feminist, 1983
Essay: Claire E. Sufrin
5. Paul Cowan with Rachel Cowan, Mixed Blessings: Overcoming the Stumbling Blocks in an Interfaith Marriage, 1988
Essay: Samira Mehta
6. Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective, 1990
Essay: Judith Rosenbaum
7. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America, 1991
Essay: Arielle Levites
8. Barry Kosmin, “Highlights of the CJF 1990 National Jewish Population Survey,” 1991; “A Portrait of Jewish Americans,” 2013
Essay: Mijal Bitton
9. Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy, 1991; Paula Hyman, “Who is an Educated Jew?” 2002; Vanessa Ochs, “Ten Jewish Sensibilities,” 2003
Essay: Hannah Pressman
10. Yaakov Levado, “Gayness and God: Wrestlings of an Orthodox Rabbi,” 1993
Essay: Zev Farber
11. Leonard Fein, “Smashing Idols and Other Prescriptions for Jewish Continuity,” 1994
Essay: Aryeh Cohen
12. Steven M. Cohen and Arnold M. Eisen, The Jew Within: Self, Family, and Community in America, 2000
Essay: Alan Brill
13. A. B. Yehoshua, “The Meaning of Homeland,” 2006
Essay: James Loeffler
14. Elliot N. Dorff, Daniel S. Nevins, and Avram I. Reisner, “Homosexuality, Human Dignity, and Halakhah: A Combined Responsum for the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards,” 2006
Essay: Jane Kanarek
15. Noah Feldman “Orthodox Paradox,” 2007; Jay Lefkowitz, “The Rise of Social Orthodoxy: A Personal Account,” 2014
Essay: Elli Fischer
16. Tamar Biala and Nechama Weingarten-Mintz (eds.), Dirshuni: Midrashei Nashim, 2009
Essay: Sarah Mulhern
17. Leon Wieseltier, “Language, Identity, and the Scandal of American Jewry,” 2011
Essay: Jon Levisohn
18. Ruth Calderon, Inaugural Knesset Speech, “The Heritage of All Israel,” 2013
Essay: Yossi Klein Halevi
19. Rick Jacobs, “The Genesis of Our Future,” 2013
Essay: Dan Friedman
