New Books In Jewish Studies

Who is the Suffering Servant? The book of Isaiah is one of the most beloved and well-known prophetic books among both Jews and Christians, but its references to the ‘Suffering Servant’ have been a source of controversy in scholarship. In today’s show, we speak with Dr. Markus Zehnder about the book he edited, New Studies in the Book of Isaiah: Essays in Honor of Hallvard Hagelia (Gorgias Press, 2014), which contains twelve articles that shed new light on the Book of Isaiah, covering a wide array of historical, linguistic and theological topics. The collection is marked by a broad diversity in approaches and theological background, and is a useful tool especially for scholars, students, and pastors. In his own contribution to this volume, Zehnder looks at the enigmatic figure of the ‘Servant of the Lord.’ Join as we take a deeper look into the book of Isaiah and the Suffering Servant.Markus Zehnder is Professor for Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. He grew up i

In Sing This at My Funeral: A Memoir of Fathers and Sons (Wayne State University Press, 2019), David Slucki, Assistant Professor in the Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program at the College of Charleston, gives us a very different type of history book. Slucki’s memoir blends the scholarly and literary, grounding the story of his grandfather and father in the broader context of the twentieth century. Based on thirty years of letters from Jakub to his brother Mendel, on archival materials, and on interviews with family members, this is a unique story and an innovative approach to writing both history and family narrative. Students, scholars, and general readers of memoirs will enjoy this deeply personal reflection on family, Jewish history and grief.Max Kaiser is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. He can be reached at kaiser@student.unimelb.edu.au  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is love between man and woman the source of wisdom and the cornerstone of moral life? Naftali Rothenberg says it is, based on the works and life of the first century Jewish scholar and sage, Rabbi Akiva.In Rabbi Akiva’s Philosophy of Love (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) Rothenberg explores the philosophy of love through the thought and life of Rabbi Akiva whose life was transformed by the love of his wife, Rachel. From this starting point, Naftali Rothenberg conducts a thorough examination of the harmonious approach to love in the obstacle-laden context of human reality. Discussing the deterioration of passion into simple lust, the ability to contend with suffering and death, and so forth, Rothenberg addresses the deepest and most pressing questions about human love. The readings and observations offered here allow readers to acquire the wisdom of love—not merely as an assemblage of theoretical arguments and abstract statements, but as an analysis of the internal contradictions and difficulties revealed in the con

The Holocaust was and remains a central trauma in Israel’s national consciousness. It has found ample expressions in Israeli documentary cinema from 1945 until the present. Third-generation Holocaust survivors were born between the late 1960s and the early 1980s. They grew up in a society which acts out the trauma and since the 1990s they have related to the Holocaust in a range of cultural fields. Remaking Holocaust Memory aims to paint the first comprehensive portrait of third-generation Holocaust documentaries phenomenon. It takes a cinematic, cultural, and sociohistorical comparative approach to examine how third-generation filmmakers have responded to previous narratives and representations. Liat Steir-Livny analyzes 19 prominent films that reflect the key tendencies of third-generation Holocaust documentaries. These films are compared to 16 Holocaust documentaries by second-generation survivors. The book explores how third-generation filmmakers are both affected by and deviate from earlier Holocaust rep

The story of where we come from is such an important aspect of our personal sense of self, the forefront of many conversations about national identity, community, and belonging. In a country like the United States, where so many of us are or are descended from immigrants, the answer to this question of heritage can be a complicated one that takes us back generations. And, with proliferation of home genealogy tests like AncestryDNA and 23andMe, people are learning more about their family histories than was ever thought possible. But what happens when the questions we have about our identities and parentage can’t be answered by a simple test?For writer Sophia Shalmiyev, the question was never “who is my mother,” but rather, “where has she gone?” Mother Winter: A Memoir (Simon & Schuster, 2019) traces Shalmiyev’s journey from early childhood in Leningrad, Russia to parenthood in Portland, Oregon as she comes to terms with the ambiguous loss of the most important relationship in her life. Finding inspiration

Nearly every consumer today is familiar with the name Levi Strauss thank to the jeans that bear his name. As Lynn Downey explains in her book Levi Strauss: The Man Who Gave Blue Jeans to the World (University of Massachusetts Press, 2016), to understand the man behind the brand requires sorting through decades of popular legends created to fill a vacuum of knowledge. Born Löb Strauß, he changed his name to Levis Strauss when he emigrated as a young man from Bavaria to the United States. Once in New York City he joined the dry goods firm established by his brothers, moving to California in 1853 to establish a branch of the firm in San Francisco. There Strauss prospered with the gold rush-era boom, becoming a leading Bay Area businessman and civic philanthropist. It was this status that led Jacob Davis, a Nevada tailor, to seek his help in patenting his design for riveted pants. Together they succeeded in establishing a patent that became the foundation for the brand known today throughout the world, thanks to

For twenty years, 47-year-old Isabel Toledo has been ghostwriting the stories of Holocaust survivors. It's the mid 1990's, Isabel is divorced from the father of her three children and in precarious relationships with three different men. Now, for the first time since she began ghosting, she’s having trouble finishing a book. This Holocaust survivor’s story brings up the angst she feels about not knowing how her own mother survived the war. And how much of Isabel’s inability to love just one man comes from the trauma of being raised by broken parents, also divorced?Miryam Sivan is the author of Make it Concrete (Cuidono Press, 2019). She is a former New Yorker who has lived in Tel Aviv for over 20 years. Miryam teaches literature and writing at the University of Haifa and has published scholarly work on numerous Israeli authors and American writers Cynthia Ozick, James Baldwin, and Jane Bowles. Her short fiction has appeared in various journals in the US and UK, and two of her short stories were adopted for th

Throughout the 20th century, especially during and immediately after WWII, New York Jews changed their names at rates considerably higher than any other ethnic group. Representative of the insidious nature of American anti-Semitism, recognizably Jewish names were often barriers for entry into college, employment, and professional advancement. College and job application forms were intentionally used as a means to “control” the Jewish population in a given college or institution. As such, many Jewish families legally changed their names in an effort to thwart pervasive anti-Semitism and discrimination. In A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America (New York University Press, 2018), Kirsten Fermaglich nuances the misconceptions and common assumptions made about name-changers and engages in a rich and meticulously researched study examining this trend. Kirsten Fermaglich is Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Michigan State University. Lindsey Jackson is a PhD st

It’s quite common these days to hear young people being urged to collect and record the stories of their grandparents or parents in order to learn and preserve their family’s history. For a few fortunate folks, like Robbin Légère Henderson, such a record already exists. Henderson’s maternal grandmother, Matilda Rabinowitz, penned her own memoir before her passing in 1963 so that her grandchildren would know her history. With candor and wit, Rabinowitz, born in 1887 in Ukraine, described her experiences as an immigrant, factory worker, single mother by choice, and union organizer. In Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century (ILR Press 2017), Henderson has expanded her grandmother’s memoir with her own commentary and original black-and-white scratchboard drawings that illustrate Rabinowitz’s early life, journey to America, political awakening, work as an IWW organizer, turbulent romance to Henderson’s grandfather, and her struggle to support herself and her child. To hear more ab

In 1647, the French author Étienne Cleirac asserted in his book Les us, et coustumes de la mer that the credit instruments known as bills of exchange had been invented by Jews. In The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells Us about the Making of European Commercial Society (Princeton University Press, 2019), Francesca Trivellato draws upon the economic, cultural, intellectual, and business history of the period to trace the origin of this myth and what its usage in early modern Europe reveals about contemporary views of both commerce and Judaism. Trivellato begins by explaining the development of bills of exchange in the Middle Ages as a means of transferring funds across long distances, ones which helped the expansion of international trade. Though used by both Christians and Jews, concerns about crypto-Judaism among converted Christians in the town of Bordeaux where Cleirac lived may have been key to his belief in their association with the bills. From Cheirac’s bo

For some two hundred years now, Pentateuchal scholarship has been dominated by the Documentary Hypothesis, a paradigm made popular by Julius Wellhausen. Recent decades, however, have seen mounting critiques of the old paradigm, from a variety of specializations, not only in Biblical Studies, but also in the fields of Assyriology, Legal History, and Linguistics. In a recent international meeting, scholars across these fields came together and presented papers, each one calling for a paradigm change in Pentateuchal research. Join us as we speak with one of those scholars, Richard Averbeck, about his contribution to Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research, edited by M. Armgardt, B. Kilchör, M. Zehnder (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2019)—his chapter is titled ‘Reading the Torah in a Better Way.’Richard Averbeck teaches at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. His areas of expertise include Old Testament, especially the Pentateuch, ancient Near Eastern history and languages, Old Testament criticism, Hebrew, and biblical c

Julie Zuckerman’s moving and engrossing debut novel-in-stories, The Book of Jeremiah (Press 53, 2019), tells the story of awkward but endearing Jeremiah Gerstler—the son of immigrants, brilliant political science professor, husband, and father. Jeremiah has yearned for respect and acceptance his entire life, and no matter his success, he still strives for more. As a boy, he was feisty and irreverent and constantly compared to his sweet and well-behaved older brother, Lenny. At the university, he worries he is a token hire. Occasionally, he’s combative with colleagues, especially as he ages. But there is a sweetness to Gerstler, too, and an abiding loyalty and affection for those he loves. When he can overcome his worst impulses, his moments of humility become among the best measures of his achievements. Spanning eight decades and interwoven with the Jewish experience of the 20th century, Julie Zuckerman charts Jeremiah’s life from boyhood, through service in WWII, to marriage and children, a professorship and

Countless sociological studies and surveys present a rather bleak picture of religion and religious engagement in the United States. Attendance at worship services remains very low and approximately one quarter of Americans indicate that they are not affiliated with any religion. This trend extends to the Jewish community, and American Jews are also experiencing decreasing synagogue attendance and low levels of adherence. However, Jack Wertheimer presents an alternative reading of American Jewish life in his new book, The New American Judaism: How Jews Practice their Religion Today (Princeton University Press, 2018). Wertheimer argues that American Jews are indeed engaging with Judaism, albeit in unique and unorthodox ways. Wertheimer analyses how certain American values and phenomena, such as hyper-individualism and “do-it-yourself” religion, are impacting the ways in which American Jews practice their religion and have paved the way for new forms and expressions of Judaism. Wertheimer also demonstrates how

In Strange Cocktail: Translation and the Making of Modern Hebrew Poetry(University of Michigan Press, 2018), Adriana X. Jacobs offers a translation-centered reading of twentieth-century modern Hebrew poetry. Through close readings of poems by Esther Raab, Leah Goldberg, Avot Yeshurun, and Harold Schimmel, Jacobs shows how an intertwined poetics and praxis of translation shaped the work of these poets and became synonymous with the act of writing itself.Yaron Peleg is the Kennedy-Leigh Reader in Modern Hebrew Studies at the University of Cambridge. His most recent book is Directed by God: Jewishness in Contemporary Israeli Film and Television (University of Texas Press, 2016).Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his book, Fegelein’s Horsemen and Genocidal Warfare: The SS Cavalry Brigade in the Soviet Union (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Dr. Henning Pieper, examines the conduct of the SS Cavalry Brigade during World War II. The SS Cavalry Brigade was a unit of the Waffen-SS that differed from other German military formations as it developed a dual role: SS cavalrymen both helped to initiate the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and experienced combat at the front. Pieper’s book highlights an understudied aspect of both the Holocaust and World War II.Craig Sorvillo is a PhD candidate in modern European history at the University of Florida. He specializes in Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust. He can be reached at craig.sorvillo@gmail.com or on twitter @craig_sorvillo.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London, 1884-1914 (Wayne State University Press, 2018), Vivi Lachs, social and cultural historian, Yiddishist, performer, and associate research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, looks at London's Yiddish popular culture. She positions it in historical perspective within Anglo-Jewish history, English socialist aesthetics, and music-hall culture. This book breaks lots of new ground, and is an exciting, entertaining and revealing peek into this vibrant and noisy world.Max Kaiser is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. He can be reached at kaiser@student.unimelb.edu.au.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does Genesis function merely as the beginning of the Bible’s larger story, or can Genesis be read as its own book? Does Genesis have its own plot that moves from complication to dénouement? Todd L. Patterson, in his recent book The Plot-structure of Genesis (Brill 2018), says, ‘Yes!’ The book of Genesis, Patterson argues, turns on the question: ‘Will the righteous seed survive?’ Tune in as we talk with Todd Patterson about the plot of Genesis.Todd L. Patterson earned his PhD in 2012 from Trinity International University, and is assistant professor of Old Testament at Matej Bel University in Slovakia. He is also a co-chairman of the Pentateuch research group for the Institute for Biblical Research.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), and Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015). He can b

Michael R. Cohen is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at Tulane University, where he holds a Sizeler Professorship. He is the author of the newly published Cotton Capitalists: American Jewish Entrepreneurship in the Reconstruction Era from NYU Press (2017), as well as The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter's Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement from Columbia University Press (2012).  He earned his Ph.D. from Brandeis University.Greg Soden is the host “Classical Ideas,” a podcast about religion and religious ideas. You can find it on iTunes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jewish women have consistently played a vital and significant role in American history more broadly, and American Jewish history specifically. Through a variety of different ways, from engaging in social activism, working outside the home, creating women’s organizations, or managing their households, Jewish women forged their own path and inserted themselves in the fabric of American life and history. In her new book, America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today (W. W. Norton and Company, 2019), Pamela S. Nadell tells the stories of America’s Jewish women, from the first Jewish women who arrived in the United States in 1654 to the very well-known Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the many women in between. Nadell’s study utilizes a variety of archival sources and oral histories to stitch together the rich history of America’s Jewish women.Lindsey Jackson is a PhD student at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is the relationship between the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern myths? Combining theories of metaphor and narrative, Paul Cho argues that the Hebrew Bible is more deeply mythological than previously recognized. Tune in as we talk with Paul Cho about the Sea Myth in the Hebrew Bible, the subject addressed in his recent book: Myth, History, and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge University Press, 2019).Paul K.-K. Cho is assistant professor of Hebrew Bible at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. His articles have been published in Catholic Biblical Quarterly and in the Journal of Biblical Literature.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), and Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megap