Emet Le Ya Akov

Emet le-Ya‘akov comprises a collection of essays celebrating the career and achievements of Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter, who has served the American and international Jewish community with distinction in his roles as a synagogue rabbi, university professor, and public intellectual. These articles, like the honoree, recognize the importance of both history and memory, emphasize the necessity of accuracy in historiography, and do not shy away from inconvenient truths. They are divided into three categories that help frame the discussion around “facing the truths of history”: Textual Traditions, Memory and Making of Meaning, and (Re)Creating a Usable Past. The volume also includes a brief sketch of Schacter’s life and work and a bibliography of his publications.

Publication of Yosef Yerushalmi's Zakhor in 1982 inspired a generation of scholarly inquiry into historical images and myths, the construction of the Jewish past, and the making and meaning of collective memory. Here, eminent scholars in their respective fields extend the lines of his seminal study into topics that range from medieval rabbinics, homiletics, kabbalah, and Hasidism to antisemitism, Zionism, and the making of modern Jewish identity. Essays are clustered around four central themes: historical consciousness and the construction of memory; the relationship between time and history in Jewish thought; the demise of traditional forms of collective memory; and the writing of Jewish history in modern times.

The Jerusalem kabbalists of the Beit El Yeshivah are the most influential school of kabbalah in modernity. The school is associated with the writings and personality of a charismatic eighteenth-century Yemenite Rabbi, Shalom Shar'abi, considered by his acolytes to be divinely inspired by the prophet Elijah. Shar'abi initiated what is still the most active school of mysticism in contemporary Middle Eastern Jewry. Today, this meditative tradition is rising in popularity not only in Jerusalem, but throughout the Jewish World. Pinchas Giller examines the characteristic mystical practices of the Beit El School. The dominant practice is that of ritual prayer with mystical "intentions," or kavvanot. The kavvanot themselves are the product of thousands of years of development and incorporate many traditions and bodies of lore. Giller examines the archaeology of the kavvanot literature, the principle aspect of which is the meditation on God's sacred names while reciting prayers, the development of particular rituals, and the innovative mystical and devotional practices of the Beit El kabbalists.

Scholars from Israel and the US examine from various perspectives the relationship between nationalism and religion.

The first annotated English edition of a classic early-twentieth-century Yiddish memoir that vividly describes Jewish life in a small Eastern European town.

An up-to-date guide to the winding, wonderful, whimsical streets of the greatest city on earth, Jerusalem. Whether you are visiting Jerusalem, live in this Golden City, or just want to learn the history of the crossroads of the world, you'll find this volume indispensable.

Rabbi Bleich is one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject of Jewish perspectives on the ethical questions which arise in the wake of modern medical technology. In these essays, which are intended for all who are concerned with these issues, Rabbi Bleich covers such questions as the care of the terminally ill, including the vexing issue of whether the family may decide to withhold information from the person who is terminally ill, artificial insemination, genetic engineering the moral status of the handicapped. AIDS, and immoral medical experimentation.

The situation the Matzav as it really is. Television audiences might be forgiven for believing that the nightly news presents the whole picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The broadcasts are by now familiar. A blown out Israeli bus, charred and smoking. Survivors sitting by the roadside, shocked and bleeding. Israeli tanks rolling into dusty Arab villages. The words "cycle of violence", "terror", and "retaliation". See it all in photographs. But how does it feel to be walking down a street, knowing that at any moment, the next explosion might engulf you and those around you? What is it like to go to work or school on a bus -- in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Haifa, hoping it will remain intact for the journey? This is a unique, controversial, and thought-provoking artistic critique of the situation in Israel today, conceived and created by the young Israeli artist, Doron Goldenberg, a graduate of the Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem. In this powerful work, through the use of both words and images, Goldenberg captures a sense of the impact of terror that can't be broadcast on television. He has also created a visual tool that conveys a mood -- a sensation -- that can't be communicated via a news-commentator. Published in conjunction with Israel at Heart, a non-profit organisation that seeks to promote a better understanding of Israel and her people.