Originally published in Chayenu 23.1 (1954), p. 14. The Great Sanhedrin – A Study of the Origin, Development, Composition and Functions of the Bet Din ha-Gadol during the Second Jewish Commonwealth. Sidney B. Hoenig, The Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, Philadelphia, 1953. One of the questions with which religious Jews are today concerned, and…...

Originally published in JJSO 36:2 (1994), pp. 141-3. Norman Solomon, The Analytic Movement: Hayyim Soloveitchik and his Circle (University of South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism series), xv + 268pp., Scholars Press, Atlanta, Georgia, 1993, $64.95 ($44.95, paperback). There emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century, chiefly under the influence of Rabbi Hayyim…...

Originally published in JJSO 35:2 (1993), pp. 154-6. Moshe Z. Sokol, ed., Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy (the Orthodox Forum Series), xiv + 250 pp., Jason Aronson, Northvale, N.J., 1992, n.p. The two main questions to which this symposium addresses itself are: 1) whether the Halakhah, in the sense of rabbinic decision (pesak), is all-embracing—leaving no room…...

Originally published in JJSO 14:2 (1972), p. 259. Nathan Rotenstreich, Tradition and Reality, The Impact of History on Modem Jewish Thought, xii + 145 pp., Contemporary Jewish Civilization Series, Moshe Davis, ed., Random House, New York, 1972, $1.95. The word ‘History’ in the sub-title of this book does not refer to the story of the past but…...

Originally published in JJSO 27:2 (1985), pp. 149-51. Eliezer Schweid, The Land of Israel: National Home or Land of Destiny, translated from the Hebrew by Deborah Greniman, 225 pp., Associated University Presses, London and Toronto, 1985, £18.50. Eliezer Schweid, in this stimulating, closely argued book, examines attitudes towards Eretz Yisrael through four distinct periods. In the Biblical…...

Originally published in JJSO 13:2 (1971), pp. 223-4. Max Brod, Paganism—Christianity—Judaism, A Confession of Faith, translated by William Wolf from the second German edition (1921), as revised by the author in 1968, x + 276 pp., University of Alabama Press, University, Alabama, 1970, $10.00. The republishing of a book after fifty years can be justified if, during…...

Originally published in JJSO 12:1 (1970), pp. 108-9. Emile Marmorstein, Heaven at Bay: The Jewish Kulturkampf in the Holy Land, ix + 215 pp., Oxford University Press, London, 1969, 45s. The problem of Judaism as a religious faith versus a secular-nationalistic interpretation of Jewish destiny is sufficiently far-reaching to demand much serious investigation. In many ways the…...

Originally published in JJSO 11:1 (1969), p. 99. David Martin, The Religious and the Secular—Studies in Secularization, xi + 164 pp., Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1969, 30s. We have by now become accustomed to being told—not least by some theologians—that modern man has ‘come of age’. The characteristics of this modern man who enjoys this admirable…...

Originally published in The Tablet (1987), p. 461. The genius of God’s chosen people A History of the Jews Paul Johnson Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £16.95 Paul Johnson, in what he calls a personal interpretation of Jewish history, carries the reader along with him through the whole sweep of Jewish experience from the patriarch Abraham (pre-Jewish, of…...

Originally published in JJSO 34:1 (1992), pp. 61-3. Norman Solomon, Judaism and World Religion (Library of Philosophy and Religion series), xv + 295pp., Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, 1991, £40.00. At one level, this is yet another (expensive) guidebook on the attitudes of Judaism towards contemporary social, political, and philosophical issues, though rarely done with such aplomb. On a…...

Originally published in JJSO 34:1 (1992), pp. 51-2. Gary A. Anderson, A Time to Mourn, A Time to Dance: The Expression of Grief and Joy in Israelite Religion, xvii +139 pp., Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, 1991, £25.00. The basic thesis of this comparatively small but erudite work is that (to quote the jacket blurb) ‘in…...

Originally published in JJSO 32:2 (1990), pp. 125-6. Joseph Dan, ed., BINAH, Studies in Jewish History, Thought, and Culture, Volume I (publication of the International Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization, Jerusalem, and of the Open University of Israel, Tel Aviv), xiii + 195 pp., Praeger Publishers and Greenwood Press, New York and London, 1989, £38.50…....

Originally published in JJSO 30:2 (1988), pp. 138-9. Gershon Weiler, Jewish Theocracy, xiv + 332 pp., E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1988, 70 guilders (or $35.00). After examining, with philosophical acumen, the idea of a Jewish theocracy from Josephus (who first coined the term) and Philo through Maimonides, Abravanel, and Spinoza, Weiler argues that it is impossible for a…...

Originally published in JJSO 30:2 (1988), p. 133. David Kranzler, Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust, with a Foreword by Isaac Lewin, (Artscroll Judaiscope Series), xii + 338 pp., Mesorah Publications, Brooklyn, New York, 1987, $15.95 (paperback, $12.95). This book defends Orthodox Jewry in the period of the Holocaust against the charge that…...

Originally published in JJSO 30:1 (1988), pp. 65-6. Mordecai Rotenberg, Re-Biographing and Deviance: Psychotherapeutic Narrativism and the Midrash, x+ 221 pp., Praeger, New York, Westport, and London, 1987, £30.95. This book is interdisciplinary, moving between the psychiatric and the Talmudic/Midrashic. I can claim no competence whatsoever in the former discipline and, consequently, find it hard to grasp…...

Originally published in JJSO 29:2 (1987), pp. 138-40. Harvey E. Goldberg, ed., Judaism Viewed from Within and from Without: Anthropological Studies (SUNY Series in Anthropology and Judaic Studies, Walter P. Zenner, ed.). x + 352 pp., State University of New York Press, Albany, 1987, $44.50 (paperback, $16.95). Frida Kerner Furman, Beyond Yiddishkeit: The Struggle for Jewish Identity…...

Originally published in JJSO 29:1 (1987), pp. 69-71. Jonathan Sacks, ed., Tradition and Transition: Essays Presented to Chief Rabbi Sir Immanuel Jakobovits to celebrate twenty years in office; English section, 324 pp.; Hebrew section, lv pp.; Jews’ College Publications, London, 1986, £20.00. This tribute to the Chief Rabbi’s personality and achievements consists of 20 articles in English,…...