Originally published in BSOAS 40:1 (1977), p. 137. Jacob Neusner: A history of the Mishnaic law of purities. Parts 6-11. (Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity, Vol. 6.) xvi, 286; xvi, 231; xviii, 292; xvi, 272; xxii, 264; xvii, 246 pp. Leiden : E. J. Brill, 1975-6. Guilders 600. In these volumes Professor Neusner continues his massive…...

Originally published in BSOAS 40:1 (1977), pp. 210-11. Jacob Neusner: Talmudic Judaism in Sasanian Babylon: essays and, studies. (Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity, Vol. 14.) xii, 187 pp. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976. Guilders 80. This collection of previously published essays by Professor Neusner has as its main and unifying theme the consideration of two…...

Originally published in BSOAS 39:2 (1976), pp. 435-6. Baruch M. Bokser: Samuel’s commentary on the Mishnah: its nature, forms, and content. Part 1. Mishnayot in the order of Zera’im. (Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity, Vol. 15, Pt. 1.) xvi, 257 pp. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975. Guilders 80. The Mishnah, compiled in Palestine around A.D…....

Originally published in BSOAS 39:1 (1976), pp. 166-7. Lee I. Levine: Caesarea under Roman rule. (Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity, Vol. 7.) xvi, 297 pp. Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1975. Guilders 80. In this very erudite work (ch. v alone has no fewer than 623 notes, many of them packed with information and discussing important scholarly questions)…...

Originally published in BSOAS 38:3 (1975), p. 627. Jacob Neusner: A history of the Mishnaic law of purities. Parts 1-5. (Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity, Vol. 6.) xxiv, 282; si, 338; xvi, 415; xvi, 350; xv, 282 pp. Leiden : E. J. Brill, 1974-5. Guildera 460. The tractates of the Mishnah (compiled c. 220) studied…...

Originally published in BSOAS 38:2 (1975), pp. 493-494. David R. Blumenthal (ed. and tr.): The commentary of R. Hoter ben Shelomo to the thirteen principles of Maimonides (Etudes sur le Judaïsme Médiéval, Tom. vi.) xx, 354 pp. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974. Guilders 92. Maimonides in his commentary to the Mishnah, written in Arabic and later…...

Originally published in BSOAS 35:3 (1972), pp. 626-627. Jacob Neusner: The, Rabbinic traditions about the Pharisees before 70. 3 vols.: xvi, 419; xiv, 353; xvi, 427pp. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971. Guilders 264. Many essays have been written by theologians, Christian and Jewish, on what they accepted as Hillel’s version of the golden rule: ‘That which…...

Words of the Wise by Louis Jacobs  Maggidim & Hasidim: Their Wisdom. By Louis I. Newman. New York: Bloch Publishing Company. $5.50. Louis Newman’s “Hasidic Anthology” is justly famed as a good popular insight into the ideas of Hasidism, a delightful collection of anecdotes, and a rich mine of useful illustrations for preacher and public…...

Originally published in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 115:2 (1983). ANCIENT SYNAGOGUES REVEALED. Edited by LEE I. LEVINE. pp. [villi], 199, 4 pl. [Jerusalem], Israel Exploration Society, 1981. Over 100 synagogal remains have been recorded in Israel alone and even more in the Diaspora, throwing light not only on this…...

Originally published in French Studies 37:4 (1983). Diderot and the Jews. By Leon Schwartz. (Sara F. Yoseloff Memorial Publications). London and Toronto: Associated University Presses. 1981. 206 pp. 7 ill. In some of his writings Diderot vehemently denigrates Jews and Judaism as crude, primitive, obscurantist and unethical. Yet, often, his disparagement can be seen as an…...

Originally published in Antony Polonsky, Israel Bartal, Gershon Hundert, Magdalena Opalski, Jerzy Tomaszewski (eds.), Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 9. RIVKA SCHATZ-UFFENHEIMER, Hasidism as Mysticism: Quietistic Elements in Eighteenth Century Hasidic Thought, translated from the Hebrew by Jonathan Chipman. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press and Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1993); pp. 398 This English edition of…...

Originally published in New York Board of Rabbis Bulletin 43 (1986). CONTEMPORARY JUDAISM: PATTERNS OF SURVIVAL, Second Edition by Gilbert S. Rosenthal. New York, 1986: Human Sciences Press. 401 pp. $34.95 Hard Cover, $16.95 Paperback. This is an updated edition of Rabbi Rosenthal’s Four Paths to One God (published in 1973); the four paths being those…...

Originally published in Journal of Jewish Sociology 29:1 (June 1987). Ronald S. Aigen and Gershon D. Hundert, eds, Community and the Individual Jew: Essays in Honor of Lavy M. Becker, viii+195 pp., Reconstructionist Rabbinical College Press, Philadelphia, 1986, $20.00 (paperback, $12.00). Part 1 of this Festschrift to a prominent Canadian rabbi and communal leader on his…...

The Ten Commandments, by Solomon Goldman, edited by Maurice Samuel, The University of Chicago Press, 1956. $3.75. Most readers of this journal will be familiar with the late Dr. Goldman’s The Book of Books and In the Beginning, the first two volumes in the contemplated series—now alas suspended owing to his death—on the whole of…...

Originally published in Judaism Today, Autumn 1998. Allan Nadler, The Faith of the Mithnagdim – Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rupture. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1997. pp. 254, £29.00. Numerous studies have been made of the conflict, which began in the second half of the 18th century—and is not without reverberations to this very day—between…...

Originally published in Judaism Today, Spring 1998. Jeffrey S. Gurock & Jacob S. Schachter, A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Modechai Kaplan, Orthodoxy and Modern Judaism. Columbia University Press, 1997. pp. 256, £32.00. This book is neither a biography of the seminal, Jewish thinker, Mordecai Kaplan, nor an intensive study of the theological ideas for…...

Originally published in Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, 25:4 (1976). Concepts of Judaism. By ISAAC BREUER. Selected and edited by Jacob S. Levinger. Jerusalem. Israel Universities Press, 1974. 348 pp. Reviewed by LOUIS JACOBS PROFESSOR LEVINGER believes, with justice, that the writings of Isaac Breuer (1883-1946), grandson, and exponent of the ideas,…...

Originally published in Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, 37:2 (1988). In this book the renowned Talmudic scholar, Professor David Weiss Halivni, offers a wide-ranging thesis, buttressed throughout by the meticulous attention to detail typical of his much admired Sources and Traditions, together with which it will undoubtedly take its place as an…...

Originally published in Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, 31:2 (1982). A Contemporary View of the Mediaevalists Maimonides and Aquinas: A Contemporary Appraisal. By Jacob Haberman. Foreword by Professor Joseph L. Blau. New York. KTAV, 1979. xx + 289 pp. This very erudite book, written in a racy style by a remarkable polymath,…...

Originally published in Journal of Jewish Studies 46. Yaakov Elman, Authority and Tradition: Toseftan Baraitot in Talmudic Babylonia. KTAV, Hoboken NJ, 1994. xiv, 328 pp. $39.50. Jack N. Lightstone, The Rhetoric of the Babylonian Talmud, Its Social Meaning and Context. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, Ont., 1994. xiv, 317 pp. $28.50. These two books contribute to the…...