Reviews written by Louis Jacobs

 Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 9 January 1981. Jewish Law and Decision-Making: A Study through Time. By Aaron M. Schreiber. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. $29.50. The main thesis of this stimulating book (consisting partly of essays by other scholars linked together by comments and further explorations by the editor) is that, throughout the history of…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle. A Tzaddik In Our Time: The Life of Aryeh Levin. By Simchah Raz. Translated from the Hebrew, revised and expanded by Charles Wengrov. Feldheim, Jerusalem-New York. $12.50. Rabbi Aryeh Levin, the hero of this collection of anecdotes, maxims and thoughts on the Torah, was a beloved figure in Jerusalem for…...

Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Edited by Alexander Altmann. Harvard University Press, London: Oxford University Press. 80s. This volume contains essays of outstanding scholarship but with an appeal for the general reader as well as the expert. Only the last study in the book—Israel Adler’s “Art Music in the Italian Ghetto” —deals with the Renaissance…...

Originally published in Judaism Today, November 1999, p. 29. Nearing retirement, Rabbi Louis Jacobs considers a book on Judaism and ‘belief’. How Orthodox is Orthodoxy? In his penetrating study on Jewish belief—“Must a Jew Believe Anything?”—published earlier this year and reviewed in these pages, Professor Menachem Kellner demonstrates that the biblical and talmudic term for “faith”—emunah—denotes…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 30 March 1984.  Conservative Judaism: A Contemporary History. By Herbert Rosenblum. United Synagogue of America, New York, 1983. As this brief, popular, but far from inadequate account shows, the Conservative movement in the USA grew from small beginnings to become the largest Jewish religious grouping in that country, with congregations…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 19 March 1982. A Jewish Philosophy and Pattern of Life. By Simon Greenberg. The Jewish Theological Seminary of America/Ktav, New York. $17.50. For the oft-repeated “Jewish way of life” to be meaningful, as our American friends would say, a strong theoretical foundation is essential. As in the title of this…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 23 April 1982. Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah. By Jacob Neusner. University of Chicago Press. £17.50. After compiling no fewer than 43 books (!) of detailed literary analysis of five orders of the Mishnah (the similar work on the sixth order was done by his pupils), Professor Neusner provides…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 10 December 1982. Interpreting the Hebrew Bible: Essays in honour of E. I. J. Rosenthal. Edited by J. A. Emerton and Stegan C. Reif. Cambridge University Press. £22.50. In addition to a delightful biographical appreciation by Dr Reif and a full bibliography of the honouree’s publications, this Festschrift for Dr Rosenthal’s…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 5 June 1981. Isaiah XXI: a Palimpsest. By A. A. Macintosh. Cambridge University Press. £12.50. Isaiah 13-39. By Otto Kaiser. Translated from the German by R. A. Wilson. SCM Press. £7.50. A palimpsest is a parchment which has been written on twice, the second time after the first writing has been…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 20 March 1981. Amos’s Oracles against the Nations. By John Barton. Cambridge University Press. £7.50. Dr. Barton’s brief (only 83 pages) but very scholarly monograph analyses the opening section of the biblical book of Amos in which the prophet denounces the Arameans, the Philistines and the rest not for offences…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 1984. A History of Religious Ideas. By Mircea Eliade. Collins. £12.00. When Prophecy Failed. By Robert P. Carroll. SCM Press. £7.50. Prophetic Essays and Addressee. By Sheldon H. Blank. Cincinnati. $12.50. All three of these books are of importance for the study of the Hebrew prophetic experience, although, in Professor…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 1982. The Making of the English Bible. By Gerald Hammond. Carcanet New Press, Manchester. £9.95. Gerald Hammond shows how the translators responsible for the Authorised Version carried out their task of producing this marvel of English literature, capturing so skillfully the cadences of the original Hebrew (the emphasis is on…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 20 August 1982. Jewish Prayer and Worship: An Introduction for Christians. By William W. Simpson. SCM Press. £2.95. William W. Simpson’s excellent introduction to Jewish prayers for Christian readers, received enthusiastically when it first appeared in 1965, is now re-published in attractive paper-back format. As expected from the distinguished General Secretary…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 25 February 1983. Sacred Texts of the World: A Universal Anthology. Edited by Ninian Smart and Richard D. Hecht. Macmillan. £14.95. A useful test for a Jewish reader wishing to buy a work on comparative religion (on which subject there has been a proliferation of books, not all of good quality)…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 11 December 1981. Law and Religion. By Zeev W. Falk. Mesharim Publishers, Jerusalem. $10. Jewish law, like any other legal system, can be approached as if it operates entirely under its own categories, without any recourse being had to extra-legal values. Such an approach is stultifying, not only because it then…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 17 October 1980. Varieties of Jewish Belief. By Louis and Rebecca Barish. Jonathan David, New York. Distributed by Jewish Chronicle Publications. £6.00. This reprint of Rabbi Barish’s “Basic Jewish Beliefs,” published as long ago as 1961, is now supplied with an Index and a new chapter on contemporary moral problems in…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle. Hadar Ha-Karmel, Vol 2. By Rabbi Mayer Lerner, edited by Rabbi J. D. Feld and published by the author’s son. London, N.P. This is the second volume (the first was published in 1970 and reviewed in this paper) of Responsa and other studies by Rabbi Dr Mayer Lerner, the first…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 14 July 1978. Donum Gentillicium: New Testament Studies in honour of David Daube. Edited by C. K. Barrett, E. Bammel and W. D. Davies. Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press. £15.00. The time is long past when Christian scholars calmly dismissed the Rabbinic literature as having nothing of value to offer except…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 23 July 1971. Studies in Jewish Philosophy and Mysticism (Hebrew). By Israel Weinstock. Mossad Harav Kook, Jerusalem. The conventional view in Jewish scholarship is that the Cabala, which arose in Spain and Provence in the thirteenth century, while it undoubtedly had its antecedents in an earlier, even far earlier, period, is…...

Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 1 April 1977. On Being a Christian. By Hans Küng. Translated by Edward Quinn. Collins. £7.95. In this gigantic book of over 700 pages with learned it notes, the distinguished Roman Catholic theologian Hans Küng provides a systematic presentation of the Christian faith, the fruit of a life-time of study…...