Posts Tagged Jewish Publication Society

Online Jewish Ethics Resources

Posted by admin in Jewish Knowledge, Link Roundup on June 15, 2010

Last month, we launched Jewishchoices.org, a new interactive community dedicated to open discussion of the ethical issues facing all of us in the Jewish community – and in the world at large. The website sprang from the content in our Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices book series. The site allows users to participate in forums and in live chat opportunities, and to read blog posts from contributors to our ethics books and other interested readers, as they regularly discuss today’s hot topics.

Turns out, Jewishchoices.org is one of a growing number of online resources where you can go to discuss Jewish ethics. Check out some of these noteworthy sites, and keep coming back to Jewishchoices.org to participate in our evolving community!

1. Jspot.org: Sponsored by Jewish Funds for Justice, Jspot.org is an online hub for netroots action. In addition to providing educational resources, the site’s blog includes a wide variety of Jewish perspectives on contemporary issues of social and economic justice.

2. Jewish Values Online: At Jewish Values Online, a panel of Conservative, Orthodox and Reform rabbis offers their perspectives on your questions about Jewish ethics. The site includes a database of existing questions, but also allows you to submit your own.

3. Repair the World: Repair the World is an organization that works to encourage Jews to participate and find meaning in service opportunities. Besides the blog, a great feature on the site is the Knowledgebase, which provides information about Jewish perspectives regarding critical issues, biographies on Jewish social justice heroes, and links further reading.

4. Pursue: Pursue is a project of American Jewish World Service and AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps that engage Jews in their 20s and 30s in social justice activities by integrating their Jewish and social justice values. The site includes a blog that covers different issues and how we can help.

Check out these sites and share in the conversation! If you know of any other Jewish ethics sites worth mentioning, let us know in the comment section.

-Jill Finkelstein

Education, Ethics, Jewish Publication Society, Text Study

2 Comments

Happy 122nd Birthday, JPS!

Posted by admin in Jewish Books, JPS Books, JPS History, Publishing on June 4, 2010

June 3, 1888, was “a great day in Philadelphia Judaism,” when 100 of the leading Jewish intellectuals in America met in Philadelphia to found the Jewish Publication Society. Fast forward 122 years and JPS is still going strong!

The amazing thing about working for the Jewish Publication Society is learning about how much historical significance the organization has within American Jewish history. In response to a large wave of Jewish immigration in the United States, the society was founded to educate the American-born children of Jewish immigrants about their heritage and unite American Jews. Still to this day, JPS’s mission is to provide literary content to those interested in many aspects of Jewish life.

Every day when I enter the office, I walk past a bookshelf filled with JPS books dating back to the late 1800s and I’m always awestruck. I feel honored to work for an organization that has had important Jewish figures like Henrietta Szold and Chaim Potok serve as Editor-in-Chief and has published works from noted scholars and literary greats like Isaac Bashevis Singer, S.Y. Agnon, Yehuda Amichai, Saul Bellow, Martin Buber, Hillel Halkin, and Abraham Joshuah Heschel. Despite all these great factors, the Jewish Publication Society would never have been as successful throughout the years without the help of you, our readers. Thank you for your continued support of JPS and here’s to many more years of providing new and exciting Jewish content.

-Jill Finkelstein

American Jewish History, Jewish Authors, Jewish Publication Society, Publishing Industry

2 Comments

Feast or Famine: Music in Jewish Life and History Part II

Posted by admin in Jewish Knowledge, JPS Books on May 12, 2010

Today’s guest blogger is Dr. Marsha Bryan Edelman, author of Discovering Jewish Music. This is the second installment of Dr. Edelman’s two part series on music’s role in Jewish history. Click here to read part 1.

http://www.milkenarchive.org

When massive immigration from Europe in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries brought millions of Jews to American shores, these “new” attitudes toward music came along. And as the Jews prospered, so, too, did their music. In American Reform congregations, synagogue choirs sang newly composed music on a regular basis. Orthodox synagogues continued (to this day) to reject the notion of accompanied rituals, but music flourished there, too, during what became known as a “Golden Age of Hazzanut” (cantorial chant). Virtuoso cantors accompanied by choirs of men and boys inspired great devotion in the throngs who marveled in their spiritual labors in the synagogue. The new recording industry took full advantage of the popularity of cantorial music, turning gifted liturgical singers into overnight sensations every bit as popular as the actors whose names were emblazoned on the marquees of the Yiddish theaters.

The Jewish musical feasting available to early 20^th century listeners never turned quite to auditory famine, but the menu of music available to connoisseurs underwent a substantial change as the new immigrants gradually assimilated American cultural styles and liturgical practices. Still, the music we hear today bears the spiritual stamp of generations past who sought to infuse the richness of Jewish music into their lives. Whether it is the melodies of Shlomo Carlebach chanted in today’s Modern Orthodox minyanim or the popularity of the guitar-accompanied niggunim that begin services in liberal synagogues, the spiritual values of Hassidic music continue to play a role across the denominational spectrum. At the same time, composed music, by contemporary singer-songwriters, offer a rich menu of selections for liturgical offerings as well as concerts and recordings. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you can sample the vast variety of domestic and even international offerings on websites for every taste.

There are still moments of musical famine on the Jewish calendar. In traditional communities, the introspective seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot are a period marked by a lull in public musical performances. The three weeks leading to Tisha B’Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple, are also marked by an absence of music from daily life and communal celebration. But these brief periods of abstinence are just an opportunity for us to regain our appetites for the smorgasbord of Jewish music that awaits us as we turn the page of the calendar. Happy are we, in the 21^st century, for whom there is no end to the delights of Jewish music.

For more information on Jewish music, check out the following sites:

The Milken Archive of American Jewish Music: http://www.milkenarchive.org
Judaica Sound Archives: http://faujsa.fau.edu/jsa
The Educational Program on Yiddish Culture (EPYC): http://epyc.yivo.org/main.php?uid=3
The American Society for Jewish Music: http://jewishmusic-asjm.org
Teruah-Jewish Music: http://teruah-jewishmusic.blogspot.com
Lishmoa: http://lishmoa.org
Jewish Music WebCenter: http://www.jmwc.org

Dr. Marsha Bryan Edelman is Professor Emerita of Music and Education at Gratz College. A musician herself, active as a singer, conductor, arranger and producer, she has also served the Zamir Choral Foundation in a variety of musical and administrative capacities since 1971. Marsha has taught and lectured on a variety of topics relating to the nature and history of Jewish music for nearly 40 years, and published a long list of articles and program notes for concerts and recordings and recordings, including a highly regarded book, Discovering Jewish Music (Jewish Publication Society 2003; paper 2007).

Education, Jewish History, Jewish Publication Society, Music

4 Comments

Feast or Famine: Music in Jewish Life and History Part I

Posted by admin in Jewish Knowledge, JPS Books on May 7, 2010

Today’s guest blogger is Dr. Marsha Bryan Edelman, author of Discovering Jewish Music. This is the first installment of Dr. Edelman’s two part series on music’s role in Jewish history. Click here to read part 2.

There’s a popular synopsis of Jewish history that says “They tried to kill us. We prevailed. Let’s eat!” This tendency toward gorging is balanced (somewhat) by the six fast days on the Jewish calendar, all of which leaves us with a “feast or famine” approach to Jewish holidays – and eating.

This “all or nothing” mentality can also be applied to the history of Jewish music. In the days of the Jerusalem Temple, music was an elaborate and essential component of Jewish rituals. The Temple orchestra was comprised of at least 12 harps and lyres of various sizes and enhanced with trumpets, finger cymbals and the jingling of the bells sown onto the hem of the high priest’s garments. No fewer than 12 Levites sang in chorus, chanting psalms to accompany the sacrifices. As the 150^th psalm itself testifies, the presence of a variety of instruments (used both in Temple rites and secular celebrations) were necessary for praising God, and the human voice, uniquely able to articulate specific praises, was the most highly prized of all.

All of that elaborate musical activity came to an end when the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE. The rabbis marked the national mourning for their lost ritual center (and political autonomy) by imposing a ban on the public performance of music. They obviously couldn’t monitor the informal singing of lullabies and work songs, but public use of instruments was limited to wedding celebrations and festivities surrounding the inauguration of a new synagogue or Torah scroll. Even synagogue singing was limited to perfunctory chants by the sheliach tzibbur (representative of the community who led the prayers) and brief responses by the congregation. Remarkably, that ban held for the better part of 1800 years! There were isolated examples of art music written for synagogue services and life cycle celebrations during the 16^th – 18^th centuries, but the overwhelming response to the Diaspora experience was a decided lack of formal musical accompaniment, despite the evolution and prominence of music all around us.

The Educational Program on Yiddish Culture

Two very different developments changed the course of Jewish music in Ashkenazic communities, and led to the proliferation of Jewish music that we hear in the US today. The first was the re-insertion of “joy” into Eastern European Jewish life through the popular philosophy of the Hassidic movement. The Ba’al Shem Tov (ca. 1700 – 1760) used the wordless melody, the nig’n, to express Jewish emotions in song. Precisely because it was without text, the nig’n could be sung at any tempo, and could capture – or change – any mood. Whether devoted to achieving dveykut (spiritual communion with God), dancing, or punctuating a rabbinic discourse with lively pounding on the rebbe’s tish (table), Hassidic songs captivated the masses, and enabled even the least educated Jew to express devotion to God and insert positive energy into Jewish life.

In Western Europe, the offer of citizenship put a formal end to the stateless wandering of the Jews. The new Reform movement refocused Jewish prayer away from mourning for the loss of Jerusalem and upended the historic ban on synagogue music inspired by the destruction of the Temple. Newly composed synagogue repertoire that modeled itself on the music of the church (complete with organ accompaniment) brought Jewish liturgical music into the Modern era. Conservatory-trained musicians provided cantorial recitatives and choral works, and congregants added the singing of hymns to their role as active participants in musical worship.

Education, Jewish History, Jewish Publication Society, Music

2 Comments

Lost, But Not Forgotten

Posted by admin in JPS Books on May 5, 2010

Biblical Archaeology Review

Last week, the New York Times reported that the ancient city of Aleppo, Syria had just laid out plans for a major historical restoration. Coincidentally, Aleppo is the setting of our latest book due out this week: Crown of Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex by Hayim Tawil and Bernard Schneider. The book tells the incredible story of the Aleppo Codex, the most authoritative and accurate traditional Masoretic texts of the Bible. Because of its importance, it became known as the Crown of Aleppo. It traveled through Jerusalem and Cairo before finding a home at the Great Synagogue of Aleppo, Syria, where it remained until the synagogue was burned down in 1947. The Crown was believed to be lost forever, but it was discovered that most of it survived when it was smuggled into Israel in 1958 and later brought to its current home at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

The Crown of Aleppo is not the only historical text that was thought to be lost. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of about 850 manuscripts, categorized as biblical, apocryphal, or sectarian, dating back to 250 B.C.E. through 68 C.E. They were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in Qumran, located on Dead Sea’s northwestern shores. Many scholars believe that the scrolls were written by a sect of Jews called the Essenes, who settled in the Judean Desert and disappeared after the Romans destroyed their settlements in 68 C.E. The Dead Sea Scrolls are now displayed in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum located in Jerusalem.

A couple years ago, Geraldine Brooks published the award-winning People of the Book, a fictional history of a real text, the Sarajevo Haggadah. The Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the oldest Sephardic Haggadahs, was written in Barcelona around 1350. After the Spanish Expulsion in 1492 it was brought to Sarajevo. The Haggadah reappeared in 1894, when was sold to the National Museum in Sarajevo. Notes written in the margins of the book have given historians clues about the book’s travels during the 300 years the book was missing. During World War II, the Haggadah was hidden from the Nazis by the museum’s librarian who smuggled it out of Sarajevo and brought it to a Muslim cleric to hide. Then, in the 1990s, the Haggadah disappeared again during the Bosnian civil war, when the museum was broken into. It was rediscovered in 1995 and has been on permanent display in the museum since 2002 thanks to the help of the United Nations and the Jewish community of Bosnia.

These texts have been crucial in our knowledge of Jewish history. In many ways they are like the Jewish people. They have overcome war and destruction, yet they still stand strong today as a source of inspiration for us and for future generations.

For more information on the Crown of Aleppo: http://www.aleppocodex.org/

To read an article about author Dr. Hayim Tawil: http://spider.mc.yu.edu/news/articles/article.cfm?id=102020

-Jill Finkelstein

Bible, Books, Education, Israel, Jewish History, Jewish Publication Society, Text Study

1 Comment

Teaching the Holocaust

Posted by admin in Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge, JPS History on April 9, 2010

Prior to working for JPS, I taught Hebrew School throughout my 4 years in college. I switched grades a few times but stayed within the K-2nd age range. For me, one of the hardest topics to teach students that young was the Holocaust.

When I was younger, facts about the Holocaust were gradually exposed. I probably knew a little more than other kids because my parents told me when I was little that my grandmother was a survivor. She sailed to the US in 1940 from Wuppertal, Germany with her brothers and arrived just a couple weeks before her 6th birthday. I knew she had been adopted because her parents had to stay behind and never made it out. I can’t remember exactly what I learned at what age, but I remember certain books I read before I turned 10 such as A Picture Book of Anne Frank and Terrible Things (coincidently published by JPS), which both used age appropriate descriptions. While one book tells one recount of the Holocaust, the other teaches a lesson about standing up to discrimination. I took both approaches when teaching the Holocaust to my students. I revealed only as much as I thought was appropriate and turned the lesson into how we can deal with discrimination. I was always impressed by the advanced level of their responses. Some of my students knew a lot of specifics and would want to discuss them with the class, but I would have to cut them off and let them share their thoughts with me privately if I felt that the information was more than some of the other students to handle.

While we want to protect the innocence of our children, it’s not as easy as it used to be. Today, kids are exposed to a lot more information than I was as a kid now that the internet is so easily accessible.

In addition, more parents now want their children to be aware of their communities and global issues at a younger age. The situation begs the question: how do we teach our young students about the Holocaust and how much is too much? While this question has been asked so many times and schools have their own Holocaust curriculums, maybe the solution isn’t as rigid as it used to be. How can we as teachers and Jewish educators adapt to the changing trends?

-Jill Finkelstein

—

There are many Holocaust Education Centers, museums, and teaching aids for educators, including this one: http://holocausteducationctr.org/ and the clearinghouse for all Holocaust organizations, the AHO: http://www.ahoinfo.org/

—

Biography, Children's Books, Education, Holocaust, Jewish Books, Jewish History, Jewish Publication Society, Trends

2 Comments

Lifting Spirits at LimmudPhilly

Posted by admin in Jewish Knowledge on March 15, 2010

Marc Brettler, JPS author, guest blogs about his LimmudPhilly experience.

Scholarship is a very lonely venture—just me and my books. I often wonder: Does anyone care? But whenever I go to Limmud, my spirits are buoyed.

http://www.limmudphilly.org/

I just returned from LimmudPhilly—my third Limmud experience, though my first in the US. (I earlier spoke at the first Limmud held in Cambridge, England, and at the big Limmud in the UK.) What a blast. Not only did I enjoy seeing old friends, colleagues, and former students, but I made new friends, and saw that people actually do care about the Bible, which I taught.

My first session was something new for Limmud—a class where knowledge of Hebrew was assumed, so we could look together at some of the Psalms traditionally recited on Friday night at synagogue, trying to figure out why there were chosen as Sabbath psalms. Given that Hebrew knowledge was expected, I thought I would have a handful of participants—but I had many more, and together we puzzled through parts of Psalms 92 an 93.

Sunday was even more of a surprise—Limmud has many simultaneous sessions, and I was talking about “How the Bible Became the Bible” opposite Ruth Messinger, who was discussing social justice. I would have gone to Ruth’s session! I had people sitting on the floor, asking the best questions I had ever been asked after I finished my talk. There certainly are demographic reasons to be worried about the American Jewish community. But my experiences at Limmud and other adult Jewish education venues, and the interest in my books The Jewish Study Bible, How to Read the Bible, and How to Read the Jewish Bible, have made me much more optimistic about the Jewish future in America. We may be decreasing numerically, but there is a solid and growing core who cares in a variety of serious ways about what it means to be Jewish, about who we are as Jews, and about continuing formal and informal Jewish education. It is this group, who was well-represented at LimmudPhilly, who sit before my mind’s eye as I continue to write on Jewish topics.

Marc Brettler is Dora Golding Professor of Biblical Studies at Brandeis University.

Bible, Books, Education, Jewish Authors, Jewish Publication Society, Limmud

No Comments

The 59th Annual Jewish Book Awards

Posted by Carol in Jewish Books on March 11, 2010

My goodness, what a week: first, the Oscars on Sunday night, and then the Jewish Oscars on Tuesday! The Jewish book Oscars, that is: the 2009 National Jewish Book Awards.

Jewish Book Council

Dozens of Jewish literary notables were there: Joseph Telushkin, James Kugel, Lawrence Schiffman, Ari Goldman, Alana Newhouse, Yitz and Blu Greenberg, just for starters. Lots of other familiar faces, too, including two former JPS interns Naomi Firestone and Miri Pomerantz Dauber, now with the Jewish Book Council, which hosted the event.

It was quite a night for JPS, with more award winners than any other publisher: Editor Emerita Ellen Frankel and Avi Katz took a prize for the best Illustrated Children’s Book, for their JPS Illustrated Children’s Bible; Paul Steinberg and Janet Greenstein Potter’s Celebrating the Jewish Year: The Spring and Summer Holidays won for best Jewish Family Literature, Judy Klitsner’s Subversive Sequel in the Bible took the award for Scholarship. Frauke von Rohden’s Meneket Rivkah: A Manual of Wisdom and Piety for Jewish Women was a finalist for in the Scholarship category, and Frankel and Katz also were finalists in Jewish Family Literature. Below you can view a slideshow of our winners at the event!

I’m a big fiction fan, so I’ve added Joseph Kertes’ Gratitude: A Novel, the fiction award winner, to my (50+ book!) reading list. If you want to add winners to your reading list, check out wwww.jewishbookcouncil.org and add your comments and suggested book list titles below in response to this posting.

-Carol Hupping, Interim Director

Awards, Book Recommendations, Children's Books, Events, Jewish Authors, Jewish Books, Jewish Publication Society, Publishing Industry

1 Comment

Posts Tagged Jewish Publication Society

Online Jewish Ethics Resources

Happy 122nd Birthday, JPS!

Feast or Famine: Music in Jewish Life and History Part II

Feast or Famine: Music in Jewish Life and History Part I

Lost, But Not Forgotten

Teaching the Holocaust

Lifting Spirits at LimmudPhilly

The 59th Annual Jewish Book Awards

Topics:

News From JPS Interactive

News From JPS

Search the JPS Blog:

Archives

Name:
Email address: