This book explores the life and thought of one of the most important but least known figures in early Zionism, Nathan Birnbaum. Now remembered mainly for his coinage of the word “Zionism,” Birnbaum was a towering figure in early Jewish nationalism. Because of his unusual intellectual trajectory, however, he has been written out of Jewish [...]
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Dr. Olson Publishes Book on Nathan Birnbaum
Thursday, January 31st, 2013Shoshannat Yaakov: Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman
Thursday, October 25th, 2012Shoshannat Yaakov honors Yaakov Elman, Professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University, and celebrates Elman’s contributions to a broad range of disciplines within Jewish and Iranian studies. The fruits of Elman’s seminal project of bringing together of scholars of Iranian studies and Talmud in ways that have transformed both disciplines, are well represented in this volume, [...]
Jews in Gotham: New York Jews in a Changing City, 1920-2010 by Jeffrey S. Gurock
Monday, July 16th, 2012Jews in Gotham: New York Jews in a Changing City, 1920-2010 by Jeffrey S. Gurock, highlights neighborhood life as the city’s distinctive feature. Dr. Gurock shows how New York retained its preeminence as the capital of American Jews because of deep roots in local worlds that that supported vigorous political, religious, and economic diversity.
The Intellectual History and Rabbinic Culture of Medieval Ashkenaz by Ephraim Kanarfogel
Thursday, July 12th, 2012In The Intellectual History and Rabbinic Culture of Medieval Ashkenaz, author Ephraim Kanarfogel challenges the dominant perception that medieval Ashkenazic rabbinic scholarship was lacking in intellectualism or broad scholarly interests. While cultural interaction between Jews and Christians in western Europe was less than that of Sephardic Jews, Kanarfogel’s study shows that the intellectual interests of [...]
Knowledge of God and the Development of Early Kabbalah by Jonathan Dauber
Wednesday, July 4th, 2012In Knowledge of God and the Development of Early Kabbalah, Jonathan Dauber offers a fresh consideration of the emergence and early development of Kabbalah against the backdrop of a reevaluation of the relationship between early Kabbalistic and philosophic discourse.
Palaces of Time by Elisheva Carlebach
Wednesday, August 31st, 2011In her new book Prof. Elisheva Carlebach focuses on the role manuscript and printed calendars (sifre evronot) played in the life of pre-modern and early modern European Jews. She notes in her introduction that the schedule of workdays and holidays was “as powerful a sign of cultural influence as any badge, language or physical marker.” Jewish calendars delineated this schedule and differentiated it from that of the surrounding non-Jewish society.
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Beyond Expulsion : Jews, Christians, and Reformation Strasbourg, by Debra Kaplan
Wednesday, August 31st, 2011Beyond Expulsion : Jews, Christians, and Reformation Strasbourg, by Debra Kaplan. Stanford University Press, 2011. This book represents a study of the Jewish influence in Strasbourg in the Middle Ages and the early modern era. All Jews were expelled from Strasbourg in 1390, and were only readmitted in 1791. Yet the Jews retained an influence [...]
Opening the Gates of Interpretation by Mordechai Z. Cohen
Wednesday, August 31st, 2011Opening the Gates of Interpretation: Maimonides’ Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of His Geonic-Andlusian Heritage and Muslim Milieu, by Mordechai Z. Cohen. Brill, 2011. Prof. Mordechai Cohen’s study of Maimonides’ method of biblical interpretation has at its heart an exacting analysis of each passage in Maimonides’ Book of the Commandments in which the term peshuto shel [...]
A Biblical Translation in the Making, by Richard C. Steiner
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011A Biblical Translation in the Making : the Evolution and Impact of Saadia Gaon’s Tafsir, by Richard C. Steiner. Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 2010. R. Saadia Gaon (882-942), one of the greatest Jewish sages of the Middle Ages, composed a translation of the Torah into Arabic, which forms the subject of Prof. Steiner’s [...]
Qumran and Jerusalem: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism by Lawrence H. Schiffman
Sunday, July 17th, 2011Lawrence H. Schiffman, Qumran and Jerusalem: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010). With the full publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls come major changes in our understanding of these fascinating ancient texts and their significance for the study of the history of Judaism and [...]
