Posts Tagged jewish history

Reviving the classics!

Posted by Alx in JPS Books, Jewish Books, Jewish Innovation, Jewish Knowledge on January 28, 2010

We’re going back to basics! As a part of our spring 2010 collection, we have re-launched five of JPS’s classic books! These classic books are for readers of all ages, and we hope that by bringing them back to the shelves, readers will be reminded of some timeless ideas that are essential to Judaism.

Lessons learned in these classic books carry as much weight as ever, containing information that, believe it or not, may be directly applicable to our lives today.

Here is a list of JPS works revived in 2010:

  1. Judaism as a Civilization by Mordecai Kaplan

This book introduced a new way of looking at Judaism, and is considered the origin of the Reconstructionist Movement. Kaplan felt that all Jews – traditional and liberal, religious and secular – could play a part in this “reconstruction.”

2. Book of Tradition by Abraham ibn Daud (author) and Gerson D. Cohen (translator)

This epic on Jewish history from ancient times to the 12th century eulogized Spanish Jewry and reminded readers of a once-thriving culture. No one before had ever attempted to write such a broad history of Jewish civilization, and this unique book is one of the first examples of Jewish historiography

3. Genesis: The Beginning of Desire by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, Ph.D.

This epic breathes new life into the stories of Adam and Even, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob and Essau, Rachel, and Joseph. Zornberg brings biblical, midrashic, and literary sources together, illuminating the tensions that grip human beings as they search for an encounter God

4. The Life of Gluckel of Hameln  by Beth-Zion Abrahams

Gluckel of Hameln’s memoir is widely viewed as one of the earliest major works written by a Jewish woman and has become a classic. This JPS book is the only English translation of Gluckel’s story from the original Yiddish and is widely considered the most accurate and complete translation available

5. Modern Poems on the Bible  by David Curzon

This is a collection of imaginative and engaging contemporary responses to the Bible. Guided by the classic rabbinic genre of midrash conceived 1,500 years ago, Curzon chooses poems from Jewish and non-Jewish writers alike and places them besides the biblical passages that were their inspiration.

After all, Albert Einstein once said: “Somebody who reads only newspapers and at best the books of contemporary authors’ looks to me like an extremely nearsighted person who scorns eyeglasses.” We’ve certainly learned a lesson or two from Albert, so perhaps we should take his advice!

-Emily

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Think You Know Everything About Judaism? Think Again!

Posted by Sarah in JPS Books, Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge 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 Super Cool, Mega-Awesome List of Jewish Comics

Posted by Sarah in JPS Books, Jewish Books, Publishing on December 16, 2009

Arie Kaplan, JPS author and comic guru, guest blogs for JPS with his recommendations for the best Jewish comics.

Okay. JPS asked me to compile a list of Jewish comics. But what makes a comic “Jewish”? Is it the fact that it was created by a Jewish writer and/or artist? Well, that doesn’t seem fair, does it? Because if you limit it to Jewish comics creators, you leave out so many talented non-Jewish comics creators, like Carl Barks or Alan Moore (Google them). Hmm. But what about a comic that features Jewish characters? Well…I dunno. Does that make the comic book itself somehow “Jewish”? That’s a little odd. Marvel’s X-Men titles feature characters of nearly every race, religion, and sexual orientation. Hmm…Eventually though, I have to make a choice here. So my choice is to NOT make a choice. (That sound you heard is me blowing your mind.) What I’ve done is, I’ve put together a list of either comics that are created by Jews or comics that feature Jewish content. That way, everyone’s happy. Also, I’ve stuck to trade paperbacks in my list, rather than the decidedly slimmer single-issue comics, because TPBs make better stocking stuffers (or, y’know, whatever the Hanukkah equivalent of a stocking stuffer is). Because I have limited space, I’ve picked a mere five books, but don’t think for a minute that these are the only “Jewish Comics” worth mentioning. (And yes, I know I’ve left out a ton of other contenders.) This should suffice as a good “recommended reading” list for the comic book fan on your holiday shopping list:

The Dark Phoenix Saga1. X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga, by Chris Claremont (writer) and John Byrne (penciler): I was a skinny, neurotic Jewish kid who got headaches all the time. So was she. Trouble was, I was real and she was fictional. But somehow we could make it work. Anyway, the “Dark Phoenix Saga” is the X-Men story arc that made me fall in love with Katherine “Kitty” Pryde. And before you laugh at me for lusting after a fictional character, ask yourself how many times you drooled over Wilma Flintstone. What? None of you? Well, uh…neither did I. Moving on…

2. The Sandman: The Wake, by Neil Gaiman (writer), Michael Zulli (artist), Jon J. Muth (artist), Charles Vess (artist): You’d be hard-pressed to find a better meditation on death, dying, and the mourning process than this final story arc in Gaiman’s acclaimed Sandman series. Everything comes full circle in “The Wake,” as the various supporting characters react to the title character’s demise. Perhaps my favorite chapter: “Sunday Mourning,” featuring the immortal Hob Gadling.

3. The New American Splendor Anthology, by Harvey Pekar (writer), Drew Friedman (artist), Frank Stack (artist), Gerry Shamray (artist), Robert Crumb (artist), Alan Moore (artist), and more: Pekar is the king of the autobiographical comics movement, and has been for well over thirty years. Many of the stories in this volume will show you why. In the story “Pa-ayper Reggs!!”, about Jewish rag peddlers in the 1920s, Pekar and artist Robert Crumb conjure up a New York of chocolate phosphates and horse-drawn wagons, a city with one foot firmly planted in the new world and one foot still languishing in the old. Good stuff.

4. The Essential Howard the Duck Volume 1, by Steve Gerber (writer), Gene Colan (artist), Frank Brunner (artist), Sal Buscema (artist), Val Mayerik (artist), and more: Oh sure, laugh. Laugh because the only version of Howard MAD About the Fiftiesthe Duck you’ve seen is that terrible 1986 movie. But really, the comic book series it’s based on is SO GOOD. It satirized everything; sex, religion, politics. And Howard was an interesting character; sarcastic, grumpy, always chomping on a cigar. He reminded me of my grandpa…and, I suspect, he probably reminded a lot of other Jewish kids of their grandpas. He really seemed like an anthropomorphic waterfowl version of a Borscht Belt comic. Was that intentional? Who knows. But we do know that this was one of the best-written comics of the ‘70s.

5. MAD About the Fifties, by Harvey Kurtzman (writer), Will Elder (artist), Jack Davis (artist), Wally Wood (artist), and more: Want to know what MAD looked like in the 1950s? When it was the sharpest, most dead-on humor comic (and later magazine) of the Eisenhower Era? This book is a heady sampler of the first eight years of MAD, including such classic stories as Kurtzman and Wood’s “Superduperman,” a parody of DC Comics’s Superman. In the late ‘50s, various celebrity contributors published work in MAD, among them Ernie Kovacs and Danny Kaye, and their work is included here as well. Also worthy of note: original MAD editor Kurtzman sprinkled his stories with a good dose of Yiddish, often to heighten the comedic effect. One can see evidence of this in the first issue of MAD, which opens on a story about two criminals. The title of the story? “Ganefs” (Yiddish for “thieves”).

Arie Kaplan, a comedian and author, is the writer behind the JPS title From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books – a 2008 National Jewish Book Award Finalist, a 2009 Sophie Brody Honor Book, and a 2009 National “Best Books 2009” Awards Finalist. He has also written numerous comic book scripts. Most recently, Kaplan wrote the short story “Man of Snow,” in which Superman battles a Snow Golem (appropriate, given the theme of “Jewish comics”). That story appears in the DC Comics anthology DC Holiday Special 2009, on sale now. Kaplan is currently writing the story and dialogue for the upcoming House M.D. videogame (based on the popular TV show) for Legacy Interactive. For more information, visit www.ariekaplan.com.

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Are the Jewish People a Mythical Group?

Posted by Sarah in Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge, Publishing on December 2, 2009

Are the Jewish People real? Or did someone invent them?

These may seem like crazy questions. Certainly there are those out there who consider themselves Jews. And, there are people who know those who practice Judaism. So, where’s the debate?

Look no further than Shlomo Sand’s book, The Invention of the Jewish People.  A controversial bestseller in Israel for the past year, Sand’s book is hitting the U.S. with its first English printing.  In it, Sand questions historical beliefs most would consider fact. According to David Goldberg from The invention of the jewish peopleJewish Community Online,

Legends about the Patriarchs, the Exodus and King David are what Sand calls “mythistories”, a word coined by the Greek writer George Sefiris to describe those embellishments with which every people seeks to glorify its origins. For the Romans it was Romulus; for the French, Charlemagne; for the Prussians, the medieval Teutonic knights.

Even with this challenge of Jewish history, Goldberg says that Sand’s book isn’t as radical as the cover implies. While I find Sand’s topic intriguing, it’s a specific argument that interests me most. In the end, Sand’s books contends that most Jews are descendants from converts, and that while large groups chose to follow Judaism, some of those once considered Jewish turned to something else.

Even if this is the case, my question is, does that make the Jewish people an invention?

Goldberg seems to be thinking along similar lines:

No one today, unless a simpleton, believes that all Jews are descended in an unbroken chain from Abraham to the present.

So, if most acknowledge the existence of converts, what’s the problem? Are they any less Jewish than those with Jewish mothers?

Don’t get me wrong, Sand’s ideas are certainly interesting, and if true, they continue to shed light to one of the oldest religions today. Still, I can’t help but wonder what point he is trying to make.

-Sarah

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The Five Greatest Forgotten Jewish Characters

Posted by Sarah in JPS Books, Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge 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 JPS Books, Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge 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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Great Names: The Crazier The Better!

Posted by Sarah in JPS Books, Jewish Books, Jewish Knowledge on October 29, 2009

Orginality. It’s one of the few things almost everyone wants. People dress in unique styles, dye their hair crazy colors, and tattoo their bodies, all in an attempt to be different from the pack.

That’s how things are today.

Need proof? Just look at some of the names out there today! Remember when no one would dream of naming their child Apple, and then Gwyneth Paltrow stunned us all? In the search for creativity, she ended up naming her daughter after a piece of fruit!

The problem is, with everyone trying to find something new, originality is becoming harder to obtain. So, I have come up with a solution. For those trying to find unique names, look no further than the Bible! I can guarantee hello-my-name-is_mthat most of these names are not in use today, ensuring that you will be unique! Even better, some of the greatest names ever can be found in the Bible. Need some ideas? Here are my top five Biblical names of all time (hope they make you smile):

1.Uz & Buz (pronounced ooze and booze)– Technically these are two different names, but I couldn’t list one without the other. While these brothers have pretty minor roles in the Bible, they probably have two of the greatest names ever! Not to mention, Uz and Buz were nephews of Abraham. So, by taking one of these names, you’re inheriting some pretty top-notch relatives!

2.Nimrod – Once again, I couldn’t resist! You might be wondering why you would ever want to be named something that means idiot or moron, but believe it or not, Nimrod was a king! He founded the city of Ninevah (the city Who's Who in the Jewish BibleG-d sent Jonah to) making even this absurd name regal!

3.Dodo – Yes, this is pronounced like the, now extinct, prehistoric bird. While, like Nimrod, it sounds insulting, its Hebrew origin is “loving.” In the bible, Dodo was a man, but feel free to push the boundaries and use it for a girl!

4.Jehoshabeath – This name is sure to make you stand out among the crowd. Because, seriously, what’s cooler than having a name so long that no one can pronounce it? This biblical character was a woman, so be sure to pass the name along to your newest female relatives!

5.Rafu – I don’t know why, but I think this name is great. Something about the way it rolls off your tongue is just so much fun, which means I had to include it in my list. It comes from the Hebrew for “cured,” so not only will your name sound cool, it’ll mean something cool too!

For more amazing name ideas, check out Who’s Who in the Jewish Bible!

-Sarah

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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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Making the Bible PG: How Children’s Bibles Differ

Posted by Sarah in JPS Books, Jewish Books, Publishing on October 19, 2009

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

MJL JBC Author Blog
Ellen Frankel, author of JPS Illustrated Children’s Bible, is guest-blogging all week for MyJewishLearning and the Jewish Book Council.

For most of Jewish history, the Bible was “one size fits all.” There was simply no such thing as a children’s version.
The second-century rabbinic anthology Pirkei Avot counsels: “At five years old [one should begin the study of] Scripture” (5:24). For centuries, Jewish children were introduced to the Bible, unexpurgated and unabridged. In fact, Jewish children’s books did not emerge as a separate genre in America until the 1930s, with the publication of The Adventures of K’Ton Ton by Sadie Rose Weilerstein. Until then, Jewish children read the same texts that were meant for adults.

So, do Jewish kids really need a children’s Bible? Or are we just imitating our Christian neighbors, who have been publishing and teaching children’s Bibles since the 11th century?

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 JPS History, Jewish Knowledge 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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