Author: Anita Diamant Publisher: Scribner ISBN: 9780671628826 Category : Reference Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
Complete, authoritative, and indispensable, The New Jewish Wedding provides the couple with options--some new, some old--to create a wedding combining spiritual meaning and joyous celebration. Step-by-step, Diamant guides readers through planning the cermony and the party that follows--from finding a rabbi and wording the invitations to hiring a caterer.
Author: Anita Diamant Publisher: Schocken ISBN: Category : Family & Relationships Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
As many as five thousand people convert to Judaism each year. Unfortunately, very few resources exist for converts or for their families and communities who will receive them. "Choosing a Jewish Life" provides advice and information that can transform the act of conversion into an extraordinary journey of self-discovery and of spiritual and intellectual growth.
Author: Daniel Sperber Publisher: ISBN: Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 688
Book Description
This volume describes the major "rites of passage" of the Jewish life cycle. From birth, through circumcision, to marriage, divorce, sickness, death and mourning, Daniel Sperber presents detailed descriptions of the major customs attending these events. These customs are examined in light of their original sources, their integration and evolution in varying Jewish communities, and the popular explanations given for their practice, both historically and today. This book draws on the whole spectrum of rabbinic literature, comparing its stories and explanations with folk beliefs of other cultures throughout the world. Sperber makes use of a wide range of resources--medieval and modern, legal, folkloristic, anthropological and literary-in his discussion of customs, proving that Jewish communities were never isolated from their environment. He also examines in depth the earliest origins of many of our well-known and commonly practiced Jewish customs. This book makes use of iconographic material found in illustrated books written by non-Jews describing Jewish practice. These illustrations are analyzed in detail, constituting yet another rich source for the understanding of the evolution of Jewish customs. Customs, by their nature, are often taken for granted. In this book, Daniel Sperber offers an expert, detailed, and lively analysis of some of the most and least commonly practiced customs in Jewish tradition.
Author: Joy Ladin Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres ISBN: 0299287335 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 271
Book Description
Professor Jay Ladin made headlines around the world when, after years of teaching literature at Yeshiva University, he returned to the Orthodox Jewish campus as a woman—Joy Ladin. In Through the Door of Life, Joy Ladin takes readers inside her transition as she changed genders and, in the process, created a new self. With unsparing honesty and surprising humor, Ladin wrestles with both the practical problems of gender transition and the larger moral, spiritual, and philosophical questions that arise. Ladin recounts her struggle to reconcile the pain of her experience living as the “wrong” gender with the pain of her children in losing the father they love. We eavesdrop on her lifelong conversations with the God whom she sees both as the source of her agony and as her hope for transcending it. We look over her shoulder as she learns to walk and talk as a woman after forty-plus years of walking and talking as a man. We stare with her into the mirror as she asks herself how the new self she is creating will ever become real. Ladin’s poignant memoir takes us from the death of living as the man she knew she wasn’t, to the shattering of family and career that accompanied her transition, to the new self, relationships, and love she finds when she opens the door of life. 2012 Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award for Biography, Autobiography, or Memoir “Wrenching—and liberating. . . .[it] opens up new ways of looking at gender and the place of LGBT Jews in community.”—Greater Phoenix Jewish News “Given her high-profile academic position, Ladin’s transition was a major news story in Israel and even internationally. But behind the public story was a private struggle and learning experience, and Ladin pulls no punches in telling that story. She offers a peek into how daunting it was to learn, with little support from others, how to dress as a middle-aged woman, to mu on make-up, to walk and talk like a female. She provides a front-row seat for observing how one person confronted a seemingly impossible situation and how she triumphed, however shakingly, over the many adversities, both societal and psychological, that stood in the way.”—The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide
Author: David Hartman Publisher: Turner Publishing Company ISBN: 1580237452 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 315
Book Description
“‘A covenantal vision of life, with mitzvah (divine commandment) as the central organizing principle in the relationship between Jews and God, liberates the intellect and the moral will. I seek to show that a tradition mediated by the Sinai covenant can encourage the development of a human being who is not afraid to assume responsibility for the ongoing drama of Jewish history. Passive resignation is seen not to be an essential trait of one whose relationship to God is mediated by the hearing of mitzvot.” —from the Introduction This interpretation of Jewish teaching will appeal to all people seeking to understand the relationship between the idea of divine demand and the human response, between religious tradition and modernity. Hartman shows that a life lived in Jewish tradition need not be passive, insulated, or self-effacing, but can be lived in the modern pluralistic world with passion, tolerance, and spontaneity. The Judaic tradition is often seen as being more concerned with uncritical obedience to law than with individual freedom and responsibility. In A Living Covenant, Hartman challenges this approach by revealing a Judaism grounded in a covenant—a relational framework—informed by the metaphor of marital love rather than that of parent-child dependency. This view of life places the individual firmly within community. Hartman shows that the Judaic tradition need not be understood in terms of human passivity and resignation, but rather as a vehicle by which human individuality and freedom can be expressed within a relational matrix.
Author: Rabbi Edward Feinstein Publisher: Turner Publishing Company ISBN: 1580236073 Category : Young Adult Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 148
Book Description
What your rabbi probably has never told you, but could—if you'd only ask. "Every day I wonder if God is real, if the Torah is true. Every day I wonder why I’m a Jew. But that’s part of being Jewish. In the Torah, we’re called Yisrael—the ones who wrestle with God. Wrestling, asking, wondering, searching is just what God wants us to do! God loves good questions. Now tell me, what are your questions?" —from Chapter 1 In Judaism we’re allowed to ask questions. We are invited to ask them. But for young people, it often feels as if no one is willing to take tough questions about religion, ourselves, and the world seriously. This updated and expanded new edition of Tough Questions Jews Ask turns that all around. With honesty, humor and respect, Rabbi Edward Feinstein tackles topics as diverse as: Why Does God Let Terrible Things Happen? What Is God Anyway? If I Pray for Something, Will I get It? What’s the meaning of life? Is that a dumb question? Why Does Religion Need So Many Rules? Why Be Jewish? With insight and wisdom—and without pretending to have all the answers—Rabbi Feinstein encourages young people to make sense of the Jewish tradition by wrestling with what we don’t understand.
Author: Joseph Telushkin Publisher: William Morrow ISBN: 9780688129583 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 688
Book Description
When, if ever, should lying be permitted? If you've damaged a person's reputation unfairly, can the damage be undone? Is a person who sells weapons responsible for how those weapons are used? if the fetus is not a life, what is it? How, as an adult, can one carry out the command to honor one's parents when they make unreasonable demands? What are the nine biblical challenges a good person must meet? What do the great Jewish writings of the last 3,500 years tell us about these and all other vital questions about our lives? Rabbi Joseph Telushkin has devoted his life to the search for answers within the teachings of Judaism. In Jewish Wisdom, Rabbi Telushkin, the author of the highly acclaimed Jewish Literacy, weaves together a tapestry of stories from the Bible and Talmud, and the insights of Jewish commentators and writers from Maimonides, Rashi, and Hillel to Einstein, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Elie Wiesel. A richer source of crucial life lessons would be hard to imagine. Accompanying this extraordinary compilation is Teluslikins compelling commentary, which reveals how these texts continue to instruct and challenge Jewsand all people concerned with leading ethical livestoday As he discusses these texts, Rabbi Telushkin addresses issues of fundamental interest to modern readers: how to live with honesty and integrity in an often dishonest world; how to care for the sick and dying; how to teach children to respect both themselves and others, how to understand and confront such great tragedies as antisemitism. and the Holocaust; what God wants from humankind. Within Jewish Wisdom's ninety chapters the reader will find extended sections illuminating Jewish perspectives on sex, romance, and marriage, what kind of belief in God a Jew can have after the Holocaust, how to use language ethically, the conflicting views of the Bible and Talmud on the death penalty, and much, much more. Jewish Wisdom adds a new dimension to the many widely read contemporary books that retell the stones and reveal the essence of classic religious and secular literature. Possibly the most far-ranging volume of stories and quotations from Jewish texts, Jewish Wisdom will itself become a classic, a book that not only has the capacity to transform how you view the world, but one that well might change how you choose to live your life.
Author: Pamela Susan Nadell Publisher: ISBN: 9781602801486 Category : Jews Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
"Commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the American Jewish Archives and the tenth anniversary of Gary P. Zola as its Director, New Essays in American Jewish History includes twenty-two new articles representing the best in modern American and Jewish scholarship. More than a celebration, New Essays serves as a scholarly benchmark in the growing field of American Jewish studies." --Amazon.com.
Author: Lillian Faderman Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300235275 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
Harvey Milk—eloquent, charismatic, and a smart-aleck—was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, but he had not even served a full year in office when he was shot by a homophobic fellow supervisor. Milk’s assassination at the age of forty-eight made him the most famous gay man in modern history; twenty years later Time magazine included him on its list of the hundred most influential individuals of the twentieth century. Before finding his calling as a politician, however, Harvey variously tried being a schoolteacher, a securities analyst on Wall Street, a supporter of Barry Goldwater, a Broadway theater assistant, a bead-wearing hippie, the operator of a camera store and organizer of the local business community in San Francisco. He rejected Judaism as a religion, but he was deeply influenced by the cultural values of his Jewish upbringing and his understanding of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. His early influences and his many personal and professional experiences finally came together when he decided to run for elective office as the forceful champion of gays, racial minorities, women, working people, the disabled, and senior citizens. In his last five years, he focused all of his tremendous energy on becoming a successful public figure with a distinct political voice.
Author: Ari L. Goldman Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1416536027 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
What does it mean to be Jewish in the 21st century? Goldman offers eloquent, thoughtful answers to this and other questions through an absorbing exploration of modern Judaism.
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Author: Anita Diamant
Author: Anita Diamant
Author: Daniel Sperber
Author: Joy Ladin
Author: David Hartman
Author: Rabbi Edward Feinstein
Author: Joseph Telushkin
Author: Pamela Susan Nadell
Author: Lillian Faderman
Author: Ari L. Goldman