Originally published in Chayenu, 22:2/3 (1953), p. 13. Learning Laughter, by Stephen Spender, London, 1952. Price 15s. The theme of this book is summed up on the jacket by the delightful picture of a dusky and a fair Jewish child playing together in the sun. It is the record of a sensitive observer’s travels in Israel…...

Originally published in Chayenu, 22:2/3 (1953), p. 13. History of freedom of thought, by J. B. Bury with an Epilogue by H. J. Blackham, Oxford University Press, 1952. Price 6s. Prof Burry’s book was first published in 1913. Much water has flowed under the bridge since that time. The promises of liberalism and secularism have not…...

Originally published in JJSO 36:1 (1994), pp. 61-3. Daniel H. Frank, ed., A People Apart: Chosenness and Ritual in Jewish Philosophical Thought (SUNY Series in Jewish Philosophy), vi + 270 pp., State University of New York Press, Albany, 1993, $16.95. The eleventh annual conference of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy focused on the Chosen People idea; the…...

Originally published in Jewish Quarterly 38:1 (141) (1991), p. 69. A CHRISTIAN KABBALIST Louis Jacobs PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA’S ENCOUNTER WITH JEWISH MYSTICISM by Chaim Wirszubski. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1989. The Jewish mystical system known as the Kabbalah, precisely because of its esoteric nature and its claim to a gnosis reaching back to the…...

Originally published in A.J.A. Quarterly, 5:2 (1959), pp. 33-4. Basic Judaism God and Man in Judaism. By Leo Baeck. With a Foreword by Leonard G. Montefiore. Vallentine, Mitchell. 6s. This essay on the basic teachings of Judaism originally appeared as Leo Baeck’s contribution to a volume entitled Religions of the World. It contains one of the…...

Originally published in A.J.A. Quarterly, 3:2 (1957), pp. 38-9. MORE BUBERISM Martin Buber—The Life of Dialogue. By Maurice Friedman. Routledge and Kegan Paul. 25s. The Legend of the Baal Shem. By Martin Buber. East and West Library. 17s. 6d. In this fully documented study, the fruit of many years of research and astonishing industry and erudition,…...

Originally published in A.J.A. Quarterly, 4:2 (1958), pp. 37-8. Modern Prophet Martin Buber. By Arthur Cohen. Bowes and Bowes. 10s. 6d. It is no use pretending that Buber makes for easy reading (is the fault due to his Germanic style or is it the requirement of a poetic approach?). Yet, if the effort is made, his…...

Originally published in A.J.A. Quarterly, 5:1 (1959), pp. 38-9. DISSONANCE Reflections on the Psalms. By C. S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles. 12s. 6d. There are fine things in this book, the chapter on praising God, for instance—“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is…...

Originally published in A.J.A. Quarterly, 7:1 (1961), pp. 34-5. CREATIVITY Jewish Existence. By Ignaz Maybaum. Vallentine, Mitchell. 21s. Dr. Maybaum’s essay on the distinctive character of Jewish existence contains many original ideas. Of particular interest is his defence of the Jewish bourgeois, who, though not necessarily creative himself, provides the “creative synthesis” which humanises the work…...

Originally published in A.J.A. Quarterly, 2:1 (1956), pp. 48-9. Buber-Maasehs Tales of the Hasidim: The Early Masters, by Martin Buber. Thames and Hudson. 18s. It is said that soon after Martin Buber’s arrival in Palestine he was complimented on his excellent Hebrew. ‘We understand everything you write, Professor’. Buber is said to have replied: ‘I shall…...

Originally published in The Times Literary Supplement 5005 (1999), p. 12. Michael S. Berger, RABBINIC AUTHORITY. 226pp. Oxford University Press. £36. 0 19 512269 0. In the Jewish tradition, still retained by Orthodoxy, the Pentateuch (the foundation document of the Jewish religion) is seen as a divine work, communicated in its entirety by God to Moses who…...

Originally published in Religious Studies, 21:3 (1985), pp. 436-7. Moshe Greenberg. Biblical Prose Prayer as a Window to the Popular Religion of Ancient Israel. Pp. viii + 66. (London: University of California Press, 1983.) £3.05. This little book by a distinguished Jewish Bible scholar has an importance both for Biblical studies and for study of the…...

Originally published in The Times Literary Supplement 4853 (1998), p. 32. Moshe Halbertal, People of the Book: Canon, Meaning, and Authority. 185pp. Harvard University Press. £23.50 (paperback, £12.50). 0 674 66111 7. Moshe Halbertal, who teaches Jewish thought and philosophy at the Hebrew University and at the Hartman Institute, both in Jerusalem, employs modem theories of meaning to…...

Originally published in The Times Literary Supplement 4834 (1997), pp. 10-11. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky and Geoffrey Wigoder, editors, THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF THE JEWISH RELIGION. 764pp. Oxford University Press. £80. 0 19 508605 8. When the Hasidic master, Shneur Zalman of Lyady, published in 1796 his brief summary of Jewish mystical theology known as the Tanya,…...

Originally published in The Times Literary Supplement 4845 (1996), p. 20. H. A. Meek, The Synagogue. 240pp. Phaidon. £34.99. 0 7148 2932 3. This is a sumptuous book, with marvellous illustrations, only a few of which are familiar. H. A. Meek’s text provides a clear account of what has come to be Judaism’s most distinctive institution. Meek,…...

Originally published in Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 33 (1992/4), pp. 279-81. Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha’Am and the Origins of Zionism, Steven J. Zipperstein (Peter Halban, London 1993) xxv + 386 pp. £25.00. Asher Hirsch Ginzberg, known to the world of Jewish letters as Ahad Ha’Am, was born in the Russian town of…...

Originally published in JJSO, 37:2 (1995), pp. 140-2. Joseph Dan, ed., BINAH, Studies in Jewish History, Thought and Culture, Volume 3 xiii + 200 pp., published for the International Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization, Jerusalem, and for the Open University of Israel, Tel Aviv by Praeger Publishers and Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut and London,…...

Originally published in JJSO, 26:2 (1984), pp. 154-6. Samuel C. Heilman, The People of the Book: Drama, Fellowship and Religion, x + 337 pp., University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1983, $22.50. Using the tools and with the aims of the social anthropologist, Samuel C. Heilman examines a unique institution, the nightly or weekly gathering of men,…...

Originally published in the Jewish Quarterly, 34.4 (128) (1987), pp. 63-4. A JEWISH BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER: THE SABBATH EVENING SERVICE WITH COMMENTARY by Chaim Raphael (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986, £10.95). Like Chaim Raphael’s widely-used A Feast of History, on the Passover Haggadah, this book is in two parts. First, the Hebrew text of the…...

Originally published in the Jewish Quarterly, 30.3 (111) (1982/3), p. 59. THE SACRED EXECUTIONER: HUMAN SACRIFICE AND THE LEGACY OF GUILT. By Hyam Maccoby (Thames and Hudson, 1982, £10.95) Hyam Maccoby’s thesis is that many of the most potent myths which have helped to mould Western civilisation have their origin in the wide-spread practice of propitiating…...