Suggestions for Further Reading

One of the easiest ways to find out more about Judaism is to browse through the pages of the 20 volume English language Encyclopedia Judaica, published in Jerusalem in 1972. There are also numerous single volume dictionaries and enclopaedias available, including a one-volume edition of the Judaica.

Try to meet Jews and talk to them, read the Jewish Press, absorb what you can through the novels and stories of writers such as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Chaim Potok, and Elie Wiesel. Videos and CDs with Jewish content abound, and the Internet has innumerable sites with an interest in Jews, Judaism, or Israel.

A word of warning, though. Translations are available of classics of rabbinic Judaism including the Talmud. But if you really want to delve into the primary sources, even in translation, you will need a teacher. It is not that the texts are deliberately obscure, but rather that the whole way of thinking relates to a civilization very different from our own, and you need an expert to ‘unpack’ the meaning for you.

The following chapter by chapter suggestions are for those who want to follow up ideas in this book:

Introduction

Klenicki, Leon, and Wigoder, Geoffrey, A Dictionary of the Jewish–ChristianDialogue (New York: Paulist Press, 1984).

Kochan, Lionel, The Jew and his History (New York: Schocken Books, 1977).

Chapter 1 WHO ARE THE JEWS?

Lewis, Bernard, The Jews of Islam (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).

Meyer, Michael A., Jewish Identity in the Modern World (Seattle & London: University of Washington Press, 1990).

Webber, Jonathan (ed.), Jewish Identities in the New Europe (London and Washington: Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies with the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1994).

Chapter 2 HOW DID JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY SPLIT UP?

Shanks, Hershel (ed.), Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of Their Origins and Early Development (Washington: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1992).

Neusner, Jacob, Vanquished Nation, Broken Spirit: The Virtues of the Heart in Formative Judaism (Cambridge, London, etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

Saperstein, Marc, Moments of Crisis in Jewish-Christian Relations (London/Philadelphia: SCM Press/Trinity Press International, 1989).

De Lange, Nicholas, Origen and the Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).

Chapter 3 HOW DID JUDAISM DEVELOP?

Urbach, Ephraim E., tr. I. Abrahams, The Sages (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1987).

Saadia, Gaon, tr. Samuel Rosenblatt, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions (New Haven: Yale University Press and London: Oxford University Press, 1948).

Twersky, I. (ed.), AMaimonides Reader (New York: Behrman House, 1972).

Sorkin, David, Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment (London: Peter Halban, 1996).

Chapter 4 THE CALENDAR AND FESTIVALS

Agnon, S. Y., Days of Awe (New York: Schocken Books, 1965). Greenberg, Irving, The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays (New York, London: Summit Books, 1988).

The Jewish Catalog, complied and edited by Richard Siegel and others. (Philadelphia; Jewish Publication Society of America.) The first Catalog is undated, the second is 1976. These Catalogs and their successors are lively ‘do-it-yourself kits’ of resources for practical Judaism.

Chapter 5 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE - PRAYER, MEDITATION, TORAH

The Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth of Nations (Centenary Edition; London: Singer’s Prayer Book Publication Committee, 1990).

Siddur Lev Chadash (Prayer Book) (Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues, London 1995/5755).

Green, Arthur S. (ed.), Jewish Spirituality (2 vols.) (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul and London: SCM, 1987).

Jacobs, Louis, Hasidic Prayer; With a new introduction (London and Washington: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1993 (2nd edition)).

Umansky, Ellen, and Ashton, Dianne, FourCenturies of Jewish Women’sSpirituality: A Sourcebook (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992).

Chapter 6 MAKING A JEWISH HOME

Geffen, Rela M. (ed.), Celebration and Renewal: Rites of Passage in Judaism (Philadelphia and Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society, 1993).

Chapter 7 OUT OF THE GHETTO, INTO THE WHIRLWIND

Meyer, Michael A., Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform

Movement in Judaism (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).

The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, Paul Mendes-Flohr and Yehuda Reinharz (eds.) (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980).

Alpert, Rebecca T., and Staub, Jacob J., Exploring Judaism: AReconstructionist Approach (New York: Reconstructionist Press, 1985). Raphael, M. L., Profiles in American Judaism: The Reform, Conservative,

Orthodox and Reconstructionist Traditions in Historical Perspective (San Francisco: 1984).

Bulka, R. (ed.), Dimensions of Orthodox Judaism (New York: 1983).

Chapter 8 TWENTIETH-CENTURY JUDAISM

Vital, David, The Origins of Zionism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). Marrus, Michael, The Holocaust in History (Penguin Books, 1987). Blumenthal, David J., Facing the Abusing God (Louisville KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1993).

Plaskow, Judith, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (San Francisco: Harper, 1991).

Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, Arthur Cohen and Paul Mendes Flohr (eds.) (New York: Free Press, 1987).

Chapter 9 'ETERNAL LAW', CHANGING TIMES

Bleich, J. David, Bioethical Dilemmas: A Jewish Perspective (Hoboken NJ: Ktav, 1998).

Feldman, David, Marital Relations, Birth Control and Abortion in Jewish Law (New York: Schocken Books, 1974).

Dorff, Elliot N., and Newman, Louis E., Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality: A Reader (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Bleich, J. David, Contemporary Halakhic Problems (vol. 3) (New York: Ktav, 1989).