American Post Judaism

Articulates a new, post-ethnic American Jewishness

Jonathan D. Sarna's award-winning American Judaism is now available in an updated and revised edition that summarizes recent scholarship and takes into account important historical, cultural, and political developments in American Judaism over the past fifteen years. Praise for the first edition: "Sarna . . . has written the first systematic, comprehensive, and coherent history of Judaism in America; one so well executed, it is likely to set the standard for the next fifty years."--Jacob Neusner, Jerusalem Post "A masterful overview."--Jeffrey S. Gurock, American Historical Review "This book is destined to be the new classic of American Jewish history."--Norman H. Finkelstein, Jewish Book World Winner of the 2004 National Jewish Book Award/Jewish Book of the Year

Explore what it means to be Jewish in contemporary America with a collection of columns by Professor Martin S. Jaffee, which first appeared in Seattle's JTNews: The Voice of Jewish Washington. From his early days as a boy in suburban Long Island, Jaffee's Jewish radar has served him faithfully. He's always been able to spot a fellow Jew from a mile away, and his faith has helped him through many tough times. It's time to laugh along with the professor as he makes humorous observations and also considers more serious issues such as faith, tradition and family. In this volume you'll read essays about: ● Jewish radar in the post-ethnic Twilight Zone; ● Groucho's paradox; ● Experiments in popular Jewish mythology; ● The hardest Jewish conversation; ● And much more! Jaffee's column "A View From the U," is a fan favorite for Jews throughout the Pacific Northwest and was recognized in 2007 by the Jewish Press Association of America with the Simon Rockower Award for Excellence in Journalism. Now, everyone can experience his wit and insights in The End of Jewish Radar.

The rise of Jewish feminism, a branch of both second-wave feminism and the American counterculture, in the late 1960s had an extraordinary impact on the leadership, practice, and beliefs of American Jews. Women Remaking American Judaism is the first book to fully examine the changes in American Judaism as women fought to practice their religion fully and to ensure that its rituals, texts, and liturgies reflected their lives. In addition to identifying the changes that took place, this volume aims to understand the process of change in ritual, theology, and clergy across the denominations. The essays in Women Remaking American Judaism offer a paradoxical understanding of Jewish feminism as both radical, in the transformational sense, and accomodationist, in the sense that it was thoroughly compatible with liberal Judaism. Essays in the first section, Reenvisioning Judaism, investigate the feminist challenges to traditional understanding of Jewish law, texts, and theology. In Redefining Judaism, the second section, contributors recognize that the changes in American Judaism were ultimately put into place by each denomination, their law committees, seminaries, rabbinic courts, rabbis, and synagogues, and examine the distinct evolution of women's issues in the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist movements. Finally, in the third section, Re-Framing Judaism, essays address feminist innovations that, in some cases, took place outside of the synagogue. An introduction by Riv-Ellen Prell situates the essays in both American and modern Jewish history and offers an analysis of why Jewish feminism was revolutionary. Women Remaking American Judaism raises provocative questions about the changes to Judaism following the feminist movement, at every turn asking what change means in Judaism and other American religions and how the fight for equality between men and women parallels and differs from other changes in Judaism. Women Remaking American Judaism will be of interest to both scholars of Jewish history and women's studies.

How did American Jewish men experience manhood, and how did they present their masculinity to others? In this distinctive book, Sarah Imhoff shows that the project of shaping American Jewish manhood was not just one of assimilation or exclusion. Jewish manhood was neither a mirror of normative American manhood nor its negative, effeminate opposite. Imhoff demonstrates how early 20th-century Jews constructed a gentler, less aggressive manhood, drawn partly from the American pioneer spirit and immigration experience, but also from Hollywood and the YMCA, which required intense cultivation of a muscled male physique. She contends that these models helped Jews articulate the value of an acculturated American Judaism. Tapping into a rich historical literature to reveal how Jews looked at masculinity differently than Protestants or other religious groups, Imhoff illuminates the particular experience of American Jewish men.

Jonathan D. Sarna’s award-winning American Judaism is now available in an updated and revised edition that summarizes recent scholarship and takes into account important historical, cultural, and political developments in American Judaism over the past fifteen years. Praise for the first edition: “Sarna . . . has written the first systematic, comprehensive, and coherent history of Judaism in America; one so well executed, it is likely to set the standard for the next fifty years.”—Jacob Neusner, Jerusalem Post “A masterful overview.”—Jeffrey S. Gurock, American Historical Review “This book is destined to be the new classic of American Jewish history.”—Norman H. Finkelstein, Jewish Book World Winner of the 2004 National Jewish Book Award/Jewish Book of the Year

In this fascinating history of the genesis of the backlash against Jewish liberalism, Staub recounts the history American Jews who advocated Palestinian statehood, showing how ideology has split the Jewish community.

To this day Jewish thinkers struggle to articulate the appropriate response to the unprecedented catastrophe of the Holocaust. Here, Morgan offers the first comprehensive overview of Post-Holocaust Jewish theology, quoting extensively from and interpreting all of the significant American writings of the movement. Morgan's lucid analysis clarifies the background of the movement in the postwar period, its origins, its character, and its legacy for subsequent thinking, theological and otherwise. Ultimately, Morgan's primary purpose is to tell the story of the movement, to illuminate its real, deep point, and to demonstrate its continuing relevance today.