American Jewish Thought Since 1934: Writings on Identity, Engagement, and Belief

Description

What is the role of Judaism and Jewish existence in America? And what role does America play in matters Jewish? This anthology considers these questions and offers a look at how the diverse body of Jewish thought developed within the historical and intellectual context of America. In this volume, editors Michael Marmur and David Ellenson bring together the distinctive voices of those who have shaped the bold and shifting soundscape of American Jewish thought over the last few generations. The contributors tackle an array of topics including theological questions; loyalty and belonging; the significance of halakhic, spiritual, and ritual practice; secularization and its discontents; and the creative recasting of Jewish peoplehood. The editors are careful to point out how a plurality of approaches emerged in response to the fundamental ruptures and challenges of continuity posed by the Holocaust, the establishment of the state of Israel, and the civil rights movement in the twentieth century. This volume also includes a wide swath of the most distinctive currents and movements over the last eighty years: post-Holocaust theology, secular forms of Jewish spirituality, ultra-orthodoxy, American neo-orthodoxy, neo-Hasidism, feminism and queer theory, diasporist critiques of Zionism, and Zionist militancy. This collection will serve as both a testament to the creativity of American Jewish thought so far, and as an inspiration for the new thinkers of its still unwritten future. Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction I. God 1. Mordecai M. Kaplan, The Future of the American Jew 2. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone 3. Hans Jonas, “The Concept of God After Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice” 4. Richard L. Rubenstein, After Auschwitz 5. Eliezer Berkovits, Faith After the Holocaust 6. Erich Fromm, You Shall Be as Gods 7. Marcia Falk, “Notes on Composing New Blessings: Toward a Feminist-Jewish Reconstruction of Prayer” 8. Edward L. Greenstein, “‘To You Do I Call’: A Critique of Impersonal Prayer” 9. Sandra B. Lubarsky, “Reconstructing Divine Power” 10. Rebecca Alpert, “Location, Location, Location: Toward a Theology of Prepositions” II. Revelation and Commandment 11. Marvin Fox, The Condition of Jewish Belief 12. Aharon Lichtenstein, The Condition of Jewish Belief 13. Will Herberg, Judaism and Modern Man 14. Jakob J. Petuchowski, “Revelation and the Modern Jew” 15. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man 16. Benjamin H. Sommer, Revelation and Authority 17. Tamar Ross, Expanding the Palace of Torah 18. Eugene B. Borowitz, Renewing the Covenant 19. Susan Handelman, “‘Crossing and Recrossing the Void’” 20. David Novak, “Is the Covenant a Bilateral Relationship?” 21. Rachel Adler, Engendering Judaism 22. Mara H. Benjamin, The Obligated Self III. Spirituality 23. Arnold Jacob Wolf, “Against Spirituality” 24. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man 25. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath 26. Arthur Green, Jewish Spirituality/Seek My Face, Speak My Name 27. Daniel C. Matt, God and the Big Bang 28. Zalman Schachter- Shalomi, Paradigm Shift 29. Marcia Prager, The Path of Blessing 30. Nancy Flam, “Healing the Spirit” 31. Arthur Waskow, Down- to-Earth Judaism 32. Sheila Weinberg, “Images of God: Closeness and Power” IV. Hermeneutics and Politics 33. Michael Fishbane, Sacred Attunement 34. Steven Kepnes, The Future of Jewish Theology 35. Jose Faur, Golden Doves with Silver Dots 36. David Hartman, A Heart of Many Rooms 37. Leo Strauss, “Jerusalem and Athens” 38. Hannah Arendt, “The Jew as Pariah” 39. Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution 40. Mitchell Cohen, “In Defense of Shaatnez” 41. Jill Jacobs, There Shall Be No Needy 42. Meir Kahane, “Down with Chanukah!” V. The Holocaust and Israel 43. Jacob Neusner, Stranger at Home 44. Joel Teitelbaum, Vayoel Moshe 45. Emil L. Fackenheim, The Jewish Return into History and Other Writings 46. Eliezer Berkovits, Faith After the Holocaust 47. David R. Blumenthal, Facing the Abusing God 48. Irving Greenberg, “The Ethics of Jewish Power Today” 49. Marc H. Ellis, Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation 50. Judith Butler, Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism 51. Ruth R. Wisse, Jews and Power 52. Daniel Gordis, We Stand Divided 53. Daniel Boyarin and Jonathan Boyarin, “Diaspora” 54. Peter Beinart, The Crisis of Zionism 55. The Editors of Commentary, “The Existential Necessity of Zionism after Paris” VI. Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality 56. Susannah Heschel, On Being a Jewish Feminist 57. Cynthia Ozick, “Notes Toward Finding the Right Question” 58. Judith Plaskow, “The Right Question Is Theological” 59. Blu Greenberg, On Women and Judaism 60. Rachel Adler, “I’ve Had Nothing Yet So I Can’t Take More” 61. Julia Watts Belser, “Making Room for the Divine She”/“Privilege and Disaster” 62. Steven Greenberg, Wrestling with God and Men 63. Jay Michaelson, “Toward a Queer Jewish Theology” 64. Benay Lappe, “The New Rabbis” 65. Jane Rachel Litman, “Born to Be Wild” 66. Joy Ladin, The Soul of the Stranger VII. Peoplehood 67. Mordecai M. Kaplan, The Future of the American Jew 68. Simon Rawidowicz, “The Ever-Dying People” 69. George Steiner, “Our Homeland, the Text” 70. Arthur A. Cohen, “Why I Choose to Be a Jew” 71. Michael Wyschogrod, The Body of Faith 72. Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai 73. Shaul Magid, American Post-Judaism 74. Steven M. Cohen and Jack Wertheimer, “What Is So Great about Post-Ethnic Judaism”/“Whatever Happened to the Jewish People” 75. Arthur Hertzberg, from Rebuilding Jewish Peoplehood 76. Paula Hyman, from Rebuilding Jewish Peoplehood 77. Dianne Cohler-Esses, “A Common Language Between East and West” 78. Lewis Gordon, In Every Tongue 79. Noam Pianko, Jewish Peoplehood: An American Innovation Further Reading Index