Power & Powerlessness in Jewish History - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Power & Powerlessness in Jewish History write by David Biale. This book was released on 2010-12-22. Power & Powerlessness in Jewish History available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. To shed light on the tensions he observed between Jewish perceptions of power versus political realitieswhich "are often the cause of misguided political decisions," like Israel's Lebanese WarBiale analyzes Jewish history from the point of view of politics and power. The author of Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History here challenges the conventions of what he terms the Jewish "mythical past": the anachronistic interpretation that the Diaspora, which occurred between the fall of an independent Jewish commonwealth in A.D. 70 and the rebirth of the State of Israel in 1948, was politically impotent, and, conversely, that the First and Second Temple periods were eras of full Jewish national sovereignty.
Jews and Power
Jews and Power - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Jews and Power write by Ruth R. Wisse. This book was released on 2008-12-24. Jews and Power available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Part of the Jewish Encounter series Taking in everything from the Kingdom of David to the Oslo Accords, Ruth Wisse offers a radical new way to think about the Jewish relationship to power. Traditional Jews believed that upholding the covenant with God constituted a treaty with the most powerful force in the universe; this later transformed itself into a belief that, unburdened by a military, Jews could pursue their religious mission on a purely moral plain. Wisse, an eminent professor of comparative literature at Harvard, demonstrates how Jewish political weakness both increased Jewish vulnerability to scapegoating and violence, and unwittingly goaded power-seeking nations to cast Jews as perpetual targets. Although she sees hope in the State of Israel, Wisse questions the way the strategies of the Diaspora continue to drive the Jewish state, echoing Abba Eban's observation that Israel was the only nation to win a war and then sue for peace. And then she draws a persuasive parallel to the United States today, as it struggles to figure out how a liberal democracy can face off against enemies who view Western morality as weakness. This deeply provocative book is sure to stir debate both inside and outside the Jewish world. Wisse's narrative offers a compelling argument that is rich with history and bristling with contemporary urgency.
Turning Points in Jewish History
Turning Points in Jewish History - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Turning Points in Jewish History write by Marc J. Rosenstein. This book was released on 2018-07-01. Turning Points in Jewish History available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. "Examining the entire span of Jewish history through the lens of thirty pivotal moments in the Jewish people's experience from biblical times through the present, Turning Points in Jewish History provides "the big picture": both a broad and a deep understanding of the Jewish historical experience"--
Not in the Heavens
Not in the Heavens - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Not in the Heavens write by David Biale. This book was released on 2015-10-27. Not in the Heavens available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Not in the Heavens traces the rise of Jewish secularism through the visionary writers and thinkers who led its development. Spanning the rich history of Judaism from the Bible to today, David Biale shows how the secular tradition these visionaries created is a uniquely Jewish one, and how the emergence of Jewish secularism was not merely a response to modernity but arose from forces long at play within Judaism itself. Biale explores how ancient Hebrew books like Job, Song of Songs, and Esther downplay or even exclude God altogether, and how Spinoza, inspired by medieval Jewish philosophy, recast the biblical God in the role of nature and stripped the Torah of its revelatory status to instead read scripture as a historical and cultural text. Biale examines the influential Jewish thinkers who followed in Spinoza's secularizing footsteps, such as Salomon Maimon, Heinrich Heine, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein. He tells the stories of those who also took their cues from medieval Jewish mysticism in their revolts against tradition, including Hayim Nahman Bialik, Gershom Scholem, and Franz Kafka. And he looks at Zionists like David Ben-Gurion and other secular political thinkers who recast Israel and the Bible in modern terms of race, nationalism, and the state. Not in the Heavens demonstrates how these many Jewish paths to secularism were dependent, in complex and paradoxical ways, on the very religious traditions they were rejecting, and examines the legacy and meaning of Jewish secularism today.
The Jewish Emergence from Powerlessness
The Jewish Emergence from Powerlessness - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Jewish Emergence from Powerlessness write by Yehuda Bauer. This book was released on 1979-12-15. The Jewish Emergence from Powerlessness available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The theme of this book is the gradual emergence of the Jewish people from total political powerlessness – a development stretching over nearly 100 years and culminating in the consolidation in the State of Israel. Ironically, Professor Bauer demonstrates, events during this period stemmed in part from a belief in the power of the international Jewish community that never existed - but that motivated both the Germans and, after the war, the British. This is a brief but absorbing study by one of the world's great experts on the Holocaust, who has drawn on a huge body of material to depict one of the unforgettable events in recent history from an arresting and unfamiliar point of view.
