Posts Tagged Religion

Add Some Religion to Your Summer Reading

Posted by Rachel Broder in Jewish Books on June 29, 2011

I have decided that I owe JPS blog readers my version of a summer reading list.  I have been spending my summer with a fair amount of Hemingway, but For Whom the Bell Tolls is probably not JPS material.  Rather than provide you with a list of only Jewish-oriented novels that you’ve already read, I want to also share a few more broadly religious or spiritual works.  You may have read some of these, you may be avoiding some of these, but hopefully I can encourage you to make a few new friends. 

artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com

-         The Plot Against America – Not necessarily Philip Roth’s best or best-known work, but a really excellent choice for the summer.  The novel imagines Charles Lindbergh defeating FDR in the 1940 election and the ensuing repercussions.  Check out this terrific article  on Roth published in last week’s Financial Times too.

-         A Passage to India OR Howard’s End - I have a huge thing for E.M. Forster because my senior seminar focused on him and Virginia Woolf.  A lot of people fear Forster’s works, but I am here to tell you that they are worth pushing through.  Both A Passage to India and Howard’s End have underlying mystical feeling to them.  A Passage to India also incorporates elements of both Islam and Hinduism.

-         A Portrait of An Artist as Young Man – I know what you’re thinking: James Joyce as a summer read?  Listen, Portrait’s third chapter is one the most frightening and vivid depictions of religion I have ever come across in a novel.  It gets all “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry G-d” coupled with religious retreat on you.

-         The Color of Water – A superb memoir of a black man tracing the roots of his white and Jewish mother, this novel was on my personal summer reading list a few years back.  I think I read the entire novel in less than two days- absolutely stunning.

-         The Old Man and the Sea – Though Hemingway’s novels are not terribly religious, The Old Man and the Sea has a certain spiritual feel to it.  I read the novella over the course of a few hours this past week and found myself oddly swept up in the old man’s inner counseling of self.  His dreaming and chatting are therapeutic and read like dialogue between self and spirit.

-         Need a break from novels?  Try some poetry.  Adhering to my religiously themed list, here are a few works you can try:

  • Pick up anything by William Blake, but start with Songs of Innocence and Experience (try to find the copy with Blake’s really beautiful engravings).
  • Again, anything by Leonard Cohen.  Before this spring, the only work of Leonard Cohen’s I knew was “Hallelujah” (which I used to play repeatedly on the piano). Upon reading “These Heroics” in April, I immediately became a Leonard Cohen fan and am now playing catch-up.
  • Read and share Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese.  The sonnets are heavy with religious allusion, yet also extremely beautiful as expressions of love. 

What are your favorite religious-oriented novels or works of poetry?

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Muslim Delegation to Auschwitz Promotes Unity and Understanding

Posted by Rachel Feltman in Jewish Knowledge on February 3, 2011

A Photo From The Event (AP)

Last Thursday was the 66th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The notorious death camp, where at least 1.1 million people were murdered over the course of World War II, has become a symbol for the Holocaust as a whole. Many events and trips were planned in memorial of the liberation day, but one stood out as a beautiful message of peace.

On Tuesday, a group of about 150 delegates from Morocco, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, and other nations arrived at Auschwitz to pay their respects. The delegation included many prominent leaders in the Muslim communities of their countries, including Karim Lahidji, the head of the Iranian League of Human Rights. Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, called the gathering “unprecedented”.

The gesture is an important one. Many of these delegates came from countries considered sources of Holocaust denial (often due to one or two loud voices, as is the case with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), so their decision to travel to Poland for this occasion is a powerful message to the world in support of religious tolerance and interfaith unity.

The trip was mostly organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific  and Cultural Organization, which works to promote worldwide understanding and collaboration. Also in support was the French-based “Aladdin Project”, which is dedicated to strengthening the relationship between Jews and Muslims worldwide.

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Jews in the World Cup

Posted by admin in Publishing on June 24, 2010

Four years ago, I watched the World Cup matches on a huge outdoor screen on the beaches of Tel Aviv. This year, though I’m in the states, I’ve still been able to take some Jewish pride in watching the games. Thanks to a report by Ron Kaplan at New Jersey Jewish News, I’ve learned that there are three Jews on the US squad:

Both Bornstein and Feilhaber, who happen to be old friends and roommates, played in yesterday’s winning game. The Jewish Journal recently interviewed the two players on their connection to Judaism. Here are a few highlights:

Feilhaber said that he and Bornstein “definitely had a special connection” because of their religion. Plus, he said, “it was easy being friends with him because he scored all the goals so I passed him all the balls.”

“My father is Jewish, and I have a connection with Judaism through my father and my grandparents. I know our history as a people and embrace being Jewish myself,” Feilhaber said. “Of course, my proudest moment as a Jew was having my bar mitzvah in front of all my family and friends.”

Bornstein’s relationship with Judaism also stems from his father, a Jew born into an Orthodox family in New York. While Bornstein did not have a bar mitzvah and doesn’t consider himself observant, he did grow up celebrating Rosh Hashanah and Passover with relatives. And he credits his experience representing the United States in the Maccabiah Games in 2005 with reinforcing his Jewish identity.

“It was an amazing experience. I loved it, and not just because I got to play soccer in Israel. It made me realize how fulfilling and enriched Jewish culture really is,”Bornstein said.

Click here to read the full article.

For further reading about Jewish sports stars, check out these great resources:

-Jill Finkelstein

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Think You Know Everything About Judaism? Think Again!

Posted by Sarah in Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge, JPS Books on January 11, 2010

Mara W. Cohen Ioannides, author of the JPS book A Shout in the Sunshine, guest blogs for JPS about the many forgotten cultures within Judaism.

Jews often forget that we are a multi-cultural community. American Jews, I believe, are particularly guilty of this, which is quite amazing considering the quilt of cultures we wrap ourselves in. We view American Jewishness as Yiddishkeit, and forget about the other ethnic groups that make up the community of Jews, like Yemini, Sephardi, etc. Before you pooh-pooh this idea, list Jewish ethnic food. Did you list: matzah balls, bagels, pastrami, rye bread, mandel brot, challah, or honey cake? Then you are an Eastern European ethnic Jew. What ever happened to humus, lahana, or halvah?

I grew up at a time when Sephardic Jews were only mentioned in history books (and I lived an hour from Mikveh Israel in the historic district of Philadelphia) and the only books for children about American Jewish children were the All of a Kind Family series. I loved those books, mostly because I imagined my grandmothers and their sisters as those girls. However, as I grew up I really wondered about all those other Jews. I wanted to know what Jews all over the world were like and there weren’t really books about them.

When I became a mother of a daughter with a Greek father, I desperately wanted her to know all of her history. I could find nothing for children about Greek Jewry. This began my series of novels. We know that Jews lived throughout history in almost every part of the world, but we don’t really understand what their lives were like. Here’s my pick of books for young and old that should get you started on seeing another part of Jewish culture:

1. I Remember Rhodes by Rebecca Amato Levy is a wonderful book of the author’s reminiscences about her childhood in the pre-Holocaust Jewish quarter of Rhodes. It is filled with celebrations, sayings, and songs. You can read it in English or Ladino! This woman was a foundation of the Rhodalisi community in California and started me on my interest in Greek Jewry.

2. Zayda Was a Cowboy by June Levitt Nislick, who would have thought? No, I’m serious. One of my grandfathers was a factory worker and the other, a postal worker, both lived in Brooklyn. Who had Jewish grandfathers who were cowboys? Never underestimate a children’s book. They may be short, but the story is just as good.

3. The Book of Jewish Food: An odyssey from Samarkand to New York by Claudia Roden was another inspiration for me. Anyone who has read my book knows there is an incredible amount of food in it. Every Jewish holiday is about food, even the fast days. My rabbi says that every time she reads my book she gets hungry. If you want to try making the food in my novel, get this book! This cookbook is amazing! The stories about the recipes are just as yummy as the recipes themselves.

4. The Life of Glückel of Hameln is a classic in women’s and Jewish studies. I love reading this memoir begun in 1690 by Glückel, a widow and mother of 14. Yes, I know, it is about an Eastern European Jew, but how many memoirs by women of this period are there? And how often do you get to read about life in the early 18th century. This book is part of the canon and should be on everyone shelves, just like Sydney Taylor’s books.

5. Rashi’s Daughters: Rachel, the third in Maggie Anton’s series, is another powerful look at cultural diversity. In this finale, Rachel’s husband lives in both France and Spain and there are few books where the comparison between the golden ages of the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim are so dynamically paralleled. I was especially intrigued by the internal conflicts of husband and wife over the question of polygamy, which was practiced by the Sephardim and not the Ashkenazi.

Have I reached my five? There are so many good books out there. I could write for days about the books I have sitting on my shelves and those I wish I did. Whatever you do, don’t forget to get yourselves some excellent CDs of music. Sephardic music is much sought after by scholars of medieval Spanish. Did you know that the language still spoken which is closest to medieval Spanish is Ladino? No? All the more reason to take the opportunity to discover the hidden sides of Jewish culture!

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The Five Greatest Forgotten Jewish Characters

Posted by Sarah in Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge, JPS Books on November 12, 2009

If I had to give one downside to the Bible, it might be its inclusion of hundreds of different people. Covering thousands of years, the Jewish Bible tells the history of the Jews, but which ones? Sure. Everyone knows Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Jacob, Ruth, and more. But, what about the hundreds of other people named in the Bible that few remember?

Which Jewish Bible Character Are You?While working on creating the Which Jewish Bible Character Are You? Facebook quiz, I found myself consulting the JPS book, Who’s Who in the Jewish Bible. I immediately fell in love. The book is amazing! It provides detailed information about each person mentioned in the Bible, something that was super helpful when creating the Facebook quiz. Even though I was focusing on some of the more major Biblical heroes/heroines, I couldn’t help but notice all the forgotten people – the people you might hear about once a year in a specific Torah portion or during a certain holiday but who often get overlooked.

So, in an attempt to discover new information, I spent some quality time perusing the pages of this JPS guide. In the end, I discovered tons of interesting people. But, since I can’t name them all, here are the five greatest forgotten characters from the Jewish Bible:

1. Mordecai – a central figure in the story of Purim, he is usually overshadowed by the characters of Esther and Haman. Still, Mordecai plays a pivotal role in the story, giving Esther information about a plot to assassinate the king. This information creates trust between Esther and the king, something that helps her thwart Haman’s plan and save her people!

2. Ishmael – even though he wasn’t Jewish, Ishmael was Abraham’s first son. While Judaism favors Isaac as Abraham’s true heir, do not forget that Ishmael went on to become the ancestor of many great religious nations, including Islam.

Who's Who in the Jewish Bible3. Dinah – the only daughter of Jacob’s thirteen children, she had to contend with a lot of testosterone and undoubtedly led an interesting life. Unfortunately, her main story involves her being raped and her brothers murdering the culprit, along with all the other men in the city . However, if you want a different spin on the tale, I suggest reading The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.

4. Samson – while most know the story of Samson and Delilah, I couldn’t help but give Samson a place in my list. For one thing, what’s cooler than a guy who derives strength from his hair? It seems so strange. Not to mention, it never ceases to amaze me that a man would tell a woman who has repeatedly tried to trick him the secret to his strength. It’s not like Delilah was trustworthy…

5. Boaz – A member of the tribe of Judah, Boaz married Ruth (who followed her mother-in-law after the death of her husband and converted to Judaism). I always thought of Boaz as a really great character of the Bible. He seems kind, and he certainly had some impressive descendants – he was King David’s great grandfather!

Enjoy some of these forgotten characters, and feel free to discover more! Happy hunting!

-Sarah

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Blessing the People – From the Commentator’s Bible

Posted by Sarah in Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge, JPS Books on November 10, 2009

Michael Carasik, author of the Commentator’s Bible series, guest blogs for JPS in a post  discussing the priestly benediction and the commentary surrounding it.

Aaron lifted his hands toward the people and blessed them; and he stepped down after offering the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the offering of well-being. Moses and Aaron then went inside the Tent of Meeting. When they came out, they blessed the people; and the Presence of the Lord appeared to all the people.  -Leviticus 9:22-23

The scene is the inauguration of the Tabernacle—the Tent that housed the Ark during the Israelites’ journeys through the wilderness. It’s also the first day of operation for the newly ordained priests: Aaron and his four sons.
So first Aaron blessed the people; then Aaron and Moses went into the Tent, came back out, and blessed the people again. But how did they do it?
The commentators disagree. Now, you can find out how and why, in the Leviticus volume of my Commentators’ Bible series—just published by JPS. This post will introduce you to three of them: Rashi, Nahmanides, and Abraham ibn Ezra (we’re giving Rashi’s grandson, Rashbam, the day off today).

Rashi says the blessing Aaron recited in v. 22 was this:

Priestly BenedictionDon’t recognize it? It’s the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:22-24, still recited in synagogues today (go to the Israel Museum web site to learn about the amazing photo):

The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
The LORD make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
- from the JPS 1917 translation

The LORD bless you and protect you!
The LORD deal kindly and graciously with you!
The LORD bestow His favor upon you and grant you peace!
- from the JPS 1962 ?** translation

But when Moses and Aaron came out of the Tent, they offered a different blessing, according to Rashi. The Bible does not give its text here, but the text is found in the Bible, in Psalm 90, which is identified in v. 1 as “A prayer of Moses.” In v. 17 of his prayer, Moses says, “May the favor of the LORD, our God, be upon us!”

Rashi explains why:

It was to say to say, “May it be God’s will that the Shekhinah rest upon the Tabernacle you have made.” For all during the first seven days of the ordination procedure, when Moses set up the Tabernacle, served there, and then disassembled it each day, the Shekhinah did not rest upon it. The people were depressed, saying, “Our master Moses! All this trouble we took was so that the Shekhinah would settle among us and we would know that we were forgiven for the sin of the Golden Calf.”

Nahmanides always takes Rashi’s explanations seriously:

If this was indeed the priestly blessing of Num. 6:24–26, as Rashi thinks, then Num. 6:23, “Speak to Aaron and his sons: Thus shall you bless the people of Israel,” must also have preceded our passage. And perhaps it did, since the Numbers passage seems to be describing “the day that Moses finished setting up the Tabernacle” (Num. 7:1).

He often disagrees with them, however:

But it might also be possible simply to understand Aaron doing the same here as did Solomon at the inauguration of the Temple, when “he spread the palms of his hands toward heaven … and in a loud voice blessed the whole congregation of Israel” (1 Kings 8:22, 55). That would explain why the text does not record that Moses commanded Aaron to do so.

Ibn Ezra takes a more practical interest in Aaron’s “lifting his hands”:

Based on this verse, our predecessors have passed on the tradition that the priests must lift their hands high when they offer the priestly blessing.

The Commentator's Bible - LeviticusLeave it to Nahmanides, however, to bring a kabbalistic element into the discussion. To find it, however, you’ll have to go to the other volume of The Commentators’ Bible that been published so far—Exodus—and the famous passage where Moses lifts up his hands to give Israel victory:

Exodus 17:8 Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. 9 Moses said to Joshua, “Pick some men for us, and go out and do battle with Amalek. Tomorrow I will station myself on the top of the hill, with the rod of God in my hand.” 10 Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 11 Then, whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; but whenever he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. 12 But Moses’ hands grew heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur, one on each side, supported his hands; thus his hands remained steady until the sun set. 13 And Joshua overwhelmed the people of Amalek with the sword.

Says Nahmanides:

His hands remained steady. This translation is correct. But according to the Way of Truth, he held ten fingers high to heaven to allude to the ten sefirot, and to cleave to the aspect of Faith that was fighting for Israel. The subject of the priests’ holding up their hands when they bless the people, and the mystery behind it, is also clarified by this text.

The Torah is not a book to pick up and read from beginning to end, once and be done with it, but a book that Jews return to over and over again to learn new insights. The Commentators’ Bible is intended to bring a deeper level of Torah study within the reach of more English-speaking Jews than ever before.

I am looking forward to learning with you!

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The Tower of Babel and Crisis of Translation

Posted by Sarah in Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge on October 27, 2009

Cross-posted from the Jewish Book Council Blog and MyJewishLearning.

In her last posts, Ellen Frankel looked at how to make the Bible PG and looked at “What is Jewish Literature?”. She has been guest-blogging all week for MyJewishLearning and JBC.copy-of-jewish-authors-blog2

In this week’s parshah, Noah, we read about the Tower of Babel, constructed at a time when “everyone on earth had the same language and the same words” (Gen. 11:1). But because the Tower’s builders thought that they could storm the gates of heaven, their speech was “confounded…[so that they could] not understand one another’s speech” (Gen 11:7). The Bible puns on the Hebrew words, bavel, referring to ancient Babylonia, and balal, to mix up. And so the people had to stop building the tower and were “scattered over the face of the earth” (Gen 11:9). And so we remain to this day—dispersed, speaking a babble of languages, not understanding one another.

As I prepare to step down at The Jewish Publication Society after eighteen years, I am struck by how much of my work has been devoted to translation, not only from foreign languages, ancient and modern, into English, but also from foreign contexts into an idiom accessible to contemporary Americans. Whether it’s the Mekhilta, a second century rabbinic Midrash on Exodus, or the teachings of the Sefat Emet, a late 19th century Hasidic master, most of today’s Jews need interpreters to guide them through the unfamiliar terrain of Jewish texts, written is so many exotic dialects: philosophy, ethics, halakha, theology, feminist criticism, folklore, history, poetry, and prayer. Without translation, these languages remain opaque.

To read the entire post, visit the Jewish Book Council Blog!

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Is Judaism a Religion? Ask Dan Brown

Posted by Sarah in Jewish Knowledge, JPS History on October 14, 2009

I have a confession. Despite all the hype surrounding his many novels, I’m not a huge Dan Brown fan. Sure, I’ve read all his books, and like many, I love a good historically-loaded suspense novel. But while his writing keeps you excited and wanting more, his plotlines are all the same. Of all his books, I read Angels & Demons last, and it only took me about two chapters before I could tell you the identity of the mysterious villain.

Lost Symbol-Dan BrownSo, when his new Robert Langdon book came out, Lost Symbol, I was torn. Part of me couldn’t help but wonder if he’d finally shaken things up. Giving in, I reserved the book at the library and finally started reading it this morning. While I haven’t completed more than 100 pages of the novel, I am excited to say that at least one part of this book has sparked an interest. In the initial pages of the novel, Brown’s protagonist Langdon discusses the question: What makes something a religion? In response, Langdon and his class talk about the three necessary components of a religion – the ABCs – assure, believe, convert. As Langdon explains, “Religions assure salvation; religions believe in a precise theology; and religions convert nonbelievers.”

This got me thinking. If these three components are necessary to categorize something as a religion, can Judaism be considered a religion?

As far as I can tell, Judaism only completely fulfills the second attribute. Most would agree that Judaism follows and believes in a specific theology, with a set of rules and beliefs all its own. We see this everyday! People keeping kosher, reciting prayers, and adhering to the Ten Commandments. But, what about the other two requirements?

Does Judaism assure salvation? Perhaps it comes down to how one defines salvation. I think of salvation as the saving of one’s soul and the belief in an afterlife. As someone raised in an observant Jewish household, I was always taught that Judaism does not discuss an afterlife. Instead, Judaism emphasizes the here and now, saying that what we Religion for Dummiesdo with the present is all that matters, not what happens to us after we are gone. Based on this, I’m not sure if Judaism meets the “A” requirement for a religion.

And, what about converting nonbelievers? Like all religions, Judaism gladly accepts those wishing to convert to the Jewish faith. However, Judaism does not go out and seek converts. There aren’t Jewish missionaries roaming the globe in search of prospective Jews. In fact, tradition says that a Rabbi must turn down someone wishing to convert three times before accepting them as a student. Three times! That means you have to really want to become a Jew if you’re going to withstand rejection so many times. So, if Jews do not act as missionaries and, on top of that, they make it difficult to convert, I have trouble seeing how they fit the “C” criterion.

What does this mean? Honestly, who knows for sure? It could just mean that Brown’s statement is flawed (regardless of whether the idea was his or someone else’s). Still, even if his book ends up leaving me disappointed, I can at least give him credit for sparking an interesting discussion!

-Sarah

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