Judaism articles from September 1998

Judaism archives from September 1998

Ancient Jewish sectarianism.
September 22, 1998... One of the dominant characteristics of Jewish life in Palestine in the period preceding the destruction of the Temple by the Romans was the prominence of Jewish sects, including the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and those who lived at...

Preparations.(poem)
September 22, 1998... The design for the harp is based on cave drawings at Meggido which are 4 to 5,000 years old and predate the Temple . . . The Jerusalem Post The loom is computerized. He has already woven the robe for the priest and the pants, like the...

Modern orthodoxy in Israel.
September 22, 1998... Israeli Orthodoxy has a bad name among most American Jews and probably most Israelis. The rabbinical establishment, rabbinical courts, and religious parties are perceived as reactionary, fossilized, resistant to any change in the realm of...

King David, the temple, and the halleluyah chorus.
September 22, 1998... The daring concept that it is appropriate for God to be worshipped regularly by freshly composed songs of praise, accompanied by musical instruments as an independent ritual, was first conceived and put into practice by David, son of Jesse,...

A wandering Jew's ode to candied fruit.(poem)
September 22, 1998... Lemon lime orange & any kind of berry yet no closer to the fruit than formica is to oak or ash to yew or cherrywood. Crystal- studded 1/2 moons: translucent center opaque hard rim - a fine white line runs in between - All you harps of...

Liberal politic and American Jewish identity.
September 22, 1998... It is no secret that American jews are deeply troubled about their future. The sociologist Samuel C. Heilman, for example, ended his 1995 volume, Portrait of American Jews, fearing that Judaism and Jewishness had no future in America. "If I am...

In celebration of Sarai's marriage to pharaoh.(poem)
September 22, 1998... Why did you say "She is my sister" so that I took her as my wife? (Genesis 12:19) The birth pangs will come later. God will see to it that they are orderly, intensifying by degrees each more nightmarish than its predecessor blood followed...

Paying calls.(excerpt from "Heshel's Kingdom")
September 22, 1998... Kelm Berelis is a plump, tragic-faced, assyrian figure with a black beard, an arched nose, flared nostrils, and a direct brown stare. He wears a gaudy short-sleeved sports shirt decorated with flowers and spear-like leaves. With every...

Israel, the fall of communism, and the re-emergence of European Jewry.
September 22, 1998... Sitting in my Jerusalem synagogue on Pesach, so close to the annual commemoration of the tragedy and bravery of the Jewish people in the Shoah and the fiftieth anniversary of the triumph and bravery of the Jews of Israel in the struggle to...

Many voices, one voice.(creation story in Genesis)
September 22, 1998... The majestic sweep of the creation story told in Genesis 1:1-2:3 strikes me every time I read it. The power is overwhelming, the simplicity is awe-inspiring, and the orderliness is deeply impressive. There is something beyond-time about this...

Reading Genesis.
September 22, 1998... My views of the style of Genesis, as well as most of what I have to say about the details of the narrative, presuppose that Genesis is a coherent book, what we moderns would think of as a work of literature. But, as many readers may be aware,...

Brichto's Bible.(theologian Herbert Chanan Brichto)
September 22, 1998... When I submitted my (not especially learned) rabbinic thesis on Jeremiah's theology, it was accepted with critical reservations by my advisor. At that point and most unexpectedly, the President of the Hebrew Union College, himself a prominent...

Telling and Remembering: A Century of American jewish Poetry.(Review)
September 22, 1998... STEVEN J. RUBIN, ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998. Reviewed by JACOB NEUSNER The two hundred poems Steven Rubin, professor of English at the University of South Florida, has assembled, with perspicacious introductions, allow us to listen...

Struggles in the Promised Land: Toward a History of Black-Jewish Relations in the United States.(Review)
September 22, 1998... Edited by JACK SALZMAN and CORNEL WEST. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Reviewed by ROBERT PHILIPSON This is the liberal version of the story. Jews came to the United States in search of religious freedom and economic...

Palestinian Arabs in an Ethnic Jewish State: Identities in Conflict.(Review)
September 22, 1998... By NADIM ROAHANA. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. Reviewed by BERNARD SUSSER The Jewish educator and philosopher Ernst Simon wrote decades ago that the litmus test of the Catholic church's moral earnestness and religious...

Feminism and Judaism: Women, Tradition, and the Women's Movement.(Review)
September 22, 1998... By MICHAEL KAUFMAN. Jerusalem: Heritage Press, 1996. Reviewed by JOEL B. WOLOWELSKY Recent decades have seen dramatic changes in the role of women in the religious - and secular - communities. Reform and Conservative Judaism have for...