New Books In Jewish Studies

Excavating and interpreting Paul’s thought, belief, ideas, and mission from his authentic letters and those otherwise attributed to him remains an ongoing effort in scholarship, with several competing perspectives vying for prominence. Matthew Thiessen advances an important reading of Paul within first-century Judaism, which he conceives not as a monolith of theological positions but rather as a spectrum of ideas that comfortably included Paul’s new belief in Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and Paul’s own call as appointed envoy to deliver that good news to non-Jewish Gentiles.  On this episode, Matthew joined the New Books Network to discuss the recent publication of A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles (Baker Academic, 2023), a concise and accessible introductory study of this Diasporic Jew that yet embraces the “weird” in Paul’s thinking, including his advance of pneumatic “gene therapy” rather than “cosmetic surgery” for non-Jews who wished to partake in God’s promises to Abraham. According to Th

In her book, Beyond the Land: Diaspora Israeli Culture in the Twenty-First Century (Wayne State University Press, 2023), Melissa Weininger theorizes a new category of "diaspora Israeli culture" that is formed around and through notions of homeland and complicates the binary between diaspora and Israel. The works addressed here inhabit and imagine diaspora from the vantage point of the putative homeland, engaging both diasporic and Zionist models simultaneously through language, geography, and imagination. These examples contend with the existence of the state of Israel and its complex implications for diaspora Jewish identities and nationalisms, as well as the implications for Zionism of those diasporic conceptions of Jewish national identity. This dynamic understanding of both an Israeli and a Jewish diaspora works to envision a non-hegemonic Jewish nationalism that can negotiate both political imagination and reality. Melissa Weininger is an assistant professor of Jewish studies at California State Universi

In Jewish Resistance to ‘Romanianization’, 1940-44 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Stefan C. Ionescu examines the process of economic Romanianization of Bucharest during the Antonescu regime that targeted the property, jobs, and businesses of local Jews and Roma/Gypsies and their legal resistance strategies to such an unjust policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In the wake of the massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas in October, 2023 I spoke with Shaul Magid, author of Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical (Princeton University Press, 2021). A visiting professor of modern Jewish studies at Harvard Divinity School, Magid also is rabbi of the Fire Island Synagogue in Sea View, N.Y. Kahane, the founder of the Jewish Defense League in the late 1960s, was assassinated in New York in 1990 yet, as Magid told me, and as his perceptive book demonstrates, his legacy lives on. Kahane was an exponent of a “militant post-Zionist apocalytpticism,” in Magid’s term, and he lived by an ethos of revenge—in Hebrew, Nekama. Nowadays, a kind of neo-Kahanism serves as an agitating ideology for a faction of Israelis who revere Kahane and keep his memory and uncompromising pronouncements alive. And as Magid explains, the neo-Kahane vision presents a stark challenge to a liberal, democratic Zionism that Kahane himself detested. Veteran journalist

Harriet Murav and Gennady Estraikh's book Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering (Academic Studies Press, 2018) discusses the participation of Jews as soldiers, journalists, and propagandists in combating the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, as the period between June 22, 1941, and May 9, 1945 was known in the Soviet Union. The essays included here examine both newly-discovered and previously-neglected oral testimony, poetry, cinema, diaries, memoirs, newspapers, and archives. This is one of the first books to combine the study of Russian and Yiddish materials, reflecting the nature of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which, for the first time during the Soviet period, included both Yiddish-language and Russian-language writers. This volume will be of use to scholars, teachers, students, and researchers working in Russian and Jewish history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.suppo

In From Adapa to Enoch: Scribal Culture and Religious Vision in Judea and Babylonia (Mohr Siebeck, 2017), Seth L. Sanders offers a history of first-millennium scribes through their heavenly journeys and heroes, treating the visions of ancient Mesopotamian and Judean literature as pragmatic things made by people. He presents each scribal culture as an individual institution via detailed evidence for how visionary figures were used over time. The author also provides the first comprehensive survey of direct evidence for contact between Babylonian, Hebrew, and Aramaic scribal cultures, when and how they came to share key features. Rather than irrecoverable religious experience, he shows how ideal scribal selves were made available through rituals documented in texts and institutions that made these roles durable. The result is as much a history of science as a history of mysticism, providing insight into how knowledge of the universe was created in ancient times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone

In Rewriting Eve: Rescuing Women’s Stories from the Bible and Reclaiming Them as Our Own (She Writes Press, 2023), Ronna Detrick invites us into the presence and power of ten sacred, biblical women, revealing the endlessly relevant ways in which they speak today and showing how they can heal, embolden, and transform our stories. Trapped in patriarchy and theological argument, dismissed as irrelevant, or viewed as unchangeable even as times change, these women’s voices, desires, and hearts have too often been silenced through misunderstanding and neglect. When they are reimagined, deconstructed, disentangled from doctrine and dogma, and heard on their own terms, these stories become a powerful inspiration and a source of discernment that reconnects us to a feminine lineage and a sovereign sense of self we’ve never known to call on or trust. Detrick has combined her love of writing with a diverse and winding career that has included coaching, spiritual direction, professional development training, corporate lea

The Book of Deuteronomy, the Fifth Book of Moses, is foundational for both Judaism and Christianity. What makes Deuteronomy so significant? How does one apply its message today? Tune in as we speak with Adolph Harstad about his recent Concordia Commentary on Deuteronomy. You’re listening to New Books in Biblical Studies, a channel of the New Books Network, and I’m your host, Michael Morales. Rev. Dr. Adolph Harstad served as a pastor for many years and was a professor at Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary. He has participated in archaeological digs and led study tours in Israel. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu. Learn mor

In Living under the Evil Pope (Brill, 2020), Martina Mampieri presents the Hebrew Chronicle of Pope Paul IV, written in the second half of the sixteenth century by the Italian Jewish moneylender Benjamin Neḥemiah ben Elnathan (alias Guglielmo di Diodato) from Civitanova Marche. The text remained in manuscript for about four centuries until the Galician scholar Isaiah Sonne (1887-1960) published a Hebrew annotated edition of the chronicle in the 1930s. This remarkable source offers an account of the events of the Papal States during Paul IV's pontificate (1555-59). Making use of broad archival materials, Martina Mampieri reflects on the nature of this work, its historical background, and contents, providing a revised edition of the Hebrew text as well as the first unabridged English translation and commentary. Martina Mampieri has been granted a special mention of excellence in the Alberigo Award 2021 by the European Academy of Religion and Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose. Learn more about your ad choices.

Rachel Elior's book The Unknown History of Jewish Women: On Learning and Illiteracy, On Slavery and Liberty (de Gruyter, 2023) is a comprehensive study on the history of Jewish women, which discusses their absence from the Jewish Hebrew library of the "People of the Book" and interprets their social condition in relation to their imposed ignorance and exclusion from public literacy.  The book begins with a chapter on communal education for Jewish boys, which was compulsory and free of charge for the first ten years in all traditional Jewish communities. The discussion continues with the striking absence of any communal Jewish education for girls until the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and the implications of this fact for twentieth-century immigration to Israel (1949-1959). The following chapters discuss the social, cultural and legal contexts of this reality of female illiteracy in the Jewish community-a community that placed a supreme value on male education. The discussion focuses on the pat

Between 167 and 160 BC, Judas Maccabeus and his brothers led a revolt against the Greek tyrant who desecrated the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Miraculously victorious, the Jews rededicated the Temple in a festival of lights that became the first Hannukah. A bloody tale of oppression, war, and ancient diplomacy, these books (Maccabees 1 and 2) are a bridge between the Old and New Testaments and are the first places that the Jewish Bible speaks of life after death, intercessory prayer, and purgatory. Matthew and Leeanne Thomas edited and annotated these texts for the Ignatius Study Bible. Matthew is a theologian and professor at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California. He and Leeanne are both scholars of Biblical Hebrew; they met in graduate school and got married. She had also once been a candidate for ordination in the Anglican Church in Canada before becoming a Catholic. Today, the couple live in Berkeley with their four beautiful children. The First and Second Books of the M

Within the vast network of Nazi camps, Stutthof may be the least known beyond Poland. This book is the first scholarly publication in English to break the silence of Stutthof, where 120,000 people were interned and at least 65,000 perished. A Nazi Camp Near Danzigoffers an overview of Stutthof's history. It also explores Danzig's significance in promoting the cult of German nationalism which led to Stutthof's establishment and which shaped its subsequent development in 1942 into a Concentration Camp, with the full resources of the Nazi Reich. A Nazi Camp Near Danzig: Perspectives on Shame and on the Holocaust from Stutthof (Bloomsbury, 2022) shows how Danzig/Gdansk, generally identified as the city where the Second World War started, became under Albert Forster, Hitler's hand-picked Gauleiter, 'the vanguard of Germandom in the east' and with its disputed history, the poster city for the Third Reich. It reflects on the fact that Danzig was close enough to supply Stutthof with both prisoners - initially local P

Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert's book Przemysłowa Concentration Camp: The Camp, the Children, the Trials (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023) explores one of the most notorious aspects of the German system of oppression in wartime Poland: the only purpose-built camp for children under the age of 16 years in German-occupied Europe. The camp at Przemysłowa street, or the Polen-Jugendverwahrlager der Sicherheitspolizei in Litzmannstadt as the Germans called it, was a concentration camp for children. The camp at Przemysłowa existed for just over two years, from December 1942 until January 1945. During that time, an unknown number of children, mainly Polish nationals, were imprisoned there and subjected to extreme physical and emotional abuse. For almost all, the consequences of atrocities which they endured in the camp remained with them for the rest of their lives.  This book focuses on the establishment of the camp, the experience of the child prisoners, and the post-war investigations and trials. It is ba

In A Sephardi Turkish Patriot: Gad Franco in the Turmoil of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic (Hamilton Books, 2023), Anthony Gad Bigio explores the life of Gad Franco (1881–1954), a prominent Sephardi journalist, then a lawyer and a jurist, who worked relentlessly for the Jewish community’s belonging to the national Turkish polity, and for the consolidation of the rule of law. This historical biography, written by his grandson, takes the reader from fin-de-siècle Izmir, to the Istanbul of the Roaring Twenties and beyond, tracing his footsteps, including his opposition to Zionism, which he considered a threat to assimilation. The world of Sephardi Jewry, the convulsions and conflicts of the late Ottoman Empire, and the birth, ruthless consolidation, and promising reforms of the young Turkish Republic, provide the context to his intriguing life story. Inflamed by ethno-nationalism, the harassment of minorities deepened in the 1930s, peaking during World War II. By then a wealthy, respected Jewish com

What does the LORD's deliverance of Israel out of Egypt to worship and serve him have to do with justice? Quite a lot, it turns out. Join us as we speak with Nathan Bills about his recent book, A Theology of Justice in Exodus (Eisenbrauns, 2020) Nathan Bills is Lecturer at Heritage Christian University College in Accra, Ghana, and is a scholar with the Theological Education Initiative. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Between the late 1950s through 1980, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt"l ("the Rav") annually delivered a two- to four-hour lecture (derashah) in Yiddish between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to the Rabbinical Council of America on the topic of repentance and the Days of Awe. Before Hashem You Shall Be Purified: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on the Days of Awe (Ohr Publishing, 2022) contains summaries of the derashos that the Rav delivered from 1973 through 1979, and includes two additional derashos presented in 1964 and 1966.  There are also links to free on-line audios and videos of the Rav presenting many of these same teshuvah drashos in Yiddish, subtitled in English by Dr. Lustiger. With the appearance of this volume, one can read the summaries and then experience the Rav's dramatic delivery of these extraordinary discourses. Matthew Miller is a graduate of Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah. He studied Jewish Studies and Linguistics at McGill for his BA and completed an MA in Hebrew Linguistics at Queen Mary Universi

Under a Bloodred Sky: Avigdor Hameiri’s War Stories and Poetry (Academic Studies Press, 2023) represents an anthology of Avigdor Hameiri’s ten most compelling war stories and poetry. His war stories are unique, and different from his Hebrew writer contemporaries in that they mix the supernatural and macabre with war, pogroms, and antisemitism. These stories and poems reflect like no other the unique complexity of the Jewish soldier’s experience of the most vicious and shocking war the world had witnessed to date — the battles, the agony, the dilemmas faced by the Jewish soldier, bravery versus cowardice, the notion of imminent death, breaking the sixth commandment (Thou Shalt Not Murder), elements of pacifism (particularly involving camaraderie between the common soldiers on both sides of the battlefield and their shared hatred for rank), and more. Peter Appelbaum is a retired microbiologist who is spending his retirement years writing and translating books about Jewish history during World War I and the imme

The Book of Esther, one of the historical books in the Torah and the Old Testament, is known as a story of community, discrimination, and human ingenuity. It’s core to the Jewish holiday of Purim, with singing, feasting, and other merriment. And it’s unique as one of the few books in the Bible that doesn’t mention God. At all. But it’s also useful as a historical document, as Lloyd Llewellyn Jones writes in his most recent book, Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther: Achaemenid Court Culture in the Hebrew Bible (I. B. Tauris, 2023). While not perhaps entirely accurate, the book refers to political divisions, court customs, and gender politics that align with what we know about Ancient Persia. In this interview, Lloyd and I talk about the Book of Esther, what it tells us about Persian history, and whether other parts of the Bible might act as good historical sources. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones holds the chair in ancient history at Cardiff University and is the director of the Ancient Iran Program for the British In

Matisyahu Shulman's Reimagining Repentance: Experiencing the High Holidays Through the Lens of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Kodesh, 2023) is unique in its attempt to bridge Torah content on the High Holidays with modern psychological theory about change. The book reviews the major themes of each part of the High Holidays and explores psychological principles related to each theme. The text contains clinical anecdotes weaved with Torah ideas and will be both a meaningful and enjoyable read for anyone wishing for a psychological perspective on the High Holidays. Excerpts from theoretical sessions with patients seeking help with drug or alcohol use disorders make the book more relatable and highlight the intersection between addiction treatment and Jewish philosophy. Matthew Miller is a graduate of Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah. He studied Jewish Studies and Linguistics at McGill for his BA and completed an MA in Hebrew Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London. He works with Jewish organizations in media

In 1930, a young Jewish man, Yehuda Yosef Eisenstein, arrived in Canada from Poland to escape persecution and the rise of Nazism in the hopes of starting a new life for himself and his family. Like countless others who made this journey from "non-preferred" countries, Eisenstein was only granted entry because he claimed to be single, starting his new life with a lie. He trusted that his wife and children would be able to follow after he had gained legal entry and found work. For years, he was given two choices: remain in North America alone, or return home to Poland to be with his family. Born from years of archival research, Who Gets In: An Immigration Story (U Regina Press, 2023) is author Norman Ravvin's deeply personal family memoir, telling the story of his grandfather's resolute struggle against xenophobic and anti-Semitic government policies. Ravvin also provides a shocking exposé of the true character of nation-building in Canada and directly challenges its reputation as a benevolent, tolerant, and mu