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,…...

Originally published in JJSO 29:1 (1987), pp. 68-9. Nahum M. Sarna, Exploring Exodus, xii +277 pp., Schocken, New York, 1986, $17.95. Following the very helpful and hugely successful guide to the first book of the Bible, Understanding Genesis, Dr Nahum Sarna now provides a guide, on the same lines, to the second book of the Bible. The…...

Originally published in JJSO 28:2 (1986), pp. 154-7. Abraham Halkin and David Hartman, Crisis and Leadership: Epistles of Maimonides, x + 292 pp., The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1985, $15.95. The three famous Epistles of Maimonides—On Martyrdom; To the Yemen; and On Resurrection—are here translated from the Arabic with learned notes by Abraham Halkin. David…...

Originally published in JJSO 28:2 (1986), pp. 149-50. Saul Bernstein, The Renaissance of the Torah Jew, xiv + 412 pp., Ktav, New York, 1985,$20.00. One of the most remarkable phenomena of the post-war years in world Jewry is the growth of Orthodox Judaism, especially in the United States, when so many had prophesied its speedy demise. Rabbi…...

Originally published in JJSO 26:1 (1984), pp. 65-6. Reuven P. Bulka, ed., Dimensions of Orthodox Judaism, xvii + 471 pp., Ktav Publishing House, New York, 1983, $25.00. For the information of the potential reader of this fascinating collection of very readable essays (most of them previously published in scholarly journals and newspapers), linked by the editor’s splendid…...

Originally published in JJSO 25:1 (1983), pp. 68-9. Chaim Raphael, The Springs of Jewish Life, v + 288 pp., Basic Books, New York, 1982, $16.50. When David Hume asked a man, who was reading philosophy for the first time, how he was getting on with his studies, the man replied: ‘I am persevering but cheerfulness keeps breaking…...

Originally published in JJSO 18:1 (1976), pp. 67-8. Gerald Blidstein, Honor Thy Father and Mother: Filial Responsibility in Jewish Law and Ethics, Library of Jewish Law and Ethics, edited by Norman Lamm, xiv + 234 pp., Ktav Publishing House, New York, 1975, $15. This is a very erudite analysis (61 pages of notes to 157 of…...

Originally published in the Journal of Jewish Studies 30:2 (1979), pp. 253-4. Ze’ev Falk and Aaron Kirschenbaum (eds.), Dine Israel: An Annual of Jewish Law and Israel’s Family Law, Vol. VII. Tel Aviv University, Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv, 1976. English section, 166 pp., Hebrew section, 254 pp. The majority of the papers in this seventh volume…...

Originally published in the Journal of Jewish Studies 31:2 (1980), p. 271. Benzion C. Kaganoff, A Dictionary of Jewish Names and their History, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1978. xiii, 250pp. £5.95. Rabbi Kaganoff, in his introduction to this well-researched study, notes that since Zunz wrote his Die Namen der Juden, 140 years ago, no book has ever been…...