Judaism On Trial

'A superb work of committed scholarship . . . a work full of interest to those already familiar with the material it contains, and compelling reading for those who are not. Maccoby has done a fine job in recapturing the intellectual and social drama of the confrontations.' Jonathan Sacks, Jewish Journal of Sociology Hyam Maccoby's now classic study focuses on the major Jewish—Christian disputations of medieval Europe: those of Paris (1240), Barcelona (1263), and Tortosa (1413-14).

Arguing that science & anti-religious philosophy are not responsible for the decline of Judaism, Rabbi Cardozo says it is those who teach it that make Judaism appear irrelevant to the needs & problems of modern man. Jewish law & custom are taught as a dogmatic creed & no longer contains the exciting spontaneity of worship, while remaining formalistic, replacing love with habit. Instead, the author believes that Judaism must reflect deep compassion to recapture the flowing fountain of a glorious tradition - if not, all becomes meaningless.

This book examines the depiction of Jews and Jewishness in modern English law, revealing the role of racial and religious understandings in legal decision-making. It challenges both assumptions about tolerance and neutrality in English law and any simple narrative of anti-Semitism, charting the ambivalent status of Jewish identity in the law.

The Trial of the Talmud that took place in Paris in 1240 has been the subject of a number of trenchant studies over the years. The present volume, with its felicitous, annotated translations of the Hebrew protocol along with a series of crucial papal letters and other church documents, places before an English-language readership for the first time a corpus of the essential primary texts that have framed the earlier scholarly discussions and analyses. The masterful overview by Robert Chazan effectively locates this disputation in its historical and literary contexts through a deft, critical synthesis of the previous studies; it also offers new insights which will undoubtedly serve to shape further discussion of this episode. This volume should be of great interest to scholars and students of Jewish history and thought, Jewish - Christian relations, and polemical literature of the middle ages. (back cover).

The Trial of God (as it was held on February 25, 1649, in Shamgorod) A Play by Elie Wiesel Translated by Marion Wiesel Introduction by Robert McAfee Brown Afterword by Matthew Fox Where is God when innocent human beings suffer? This drama lays bare the most vexing questions confronting the moral imagination. Set in a Ukranian village in the year 1649, this haunting play takes place in the aftermath of a pogrom. Only two Jews, Berish the innkeeper and his daughter Hannah, have survived the brutal Cossack raids. When three itinerant actors arrive in town to perform a Purim play, Berish demands that they stage a mock trial of God instead, indicting Him for His silence in the face of evil. Berish, a latter-day Job, is ready to take on the role of prosecutor. But who will defend God? A mysterious stranger named Sam, who seems oddly familiar to everyone present, shows up just in time to volunteer. The idea for this play came from an event that Elie Wiesel witnessed as a boy in Auschwitz: “Three rabbis—all erudite and pious men—decided one evening to indict God for allowing His children to be massacred. I remember: I was there, and I felt like crying. But there nobody cried.” Inspired and challenged by this play, Christian theologians Robert McAfee Brown and Matthew Fox, in a new Introduction and Afterword, join Elie Wiesel in the search for faith in a world where God is silent.

All are true, presented with balance and clarity by lawyers and scholars."--Jacket.