JUDAISM

the religion of the Jews. It is the complex expression of a religious and ethnic community, a way of life as well as a set of basic beliefs and values, which is discerned in patterns of action, social order, and culture as well as in religious statements and concepts. The first section of this article treats the history of Judaism in the broadest and most complete sense, from the early ancestral beginnings of the Jewish people down to contemporary times. In the second section the beliefs, practices, and culture of Judaism are discussed. Dates are listed throughout as BCE (Before the Common Era = BC) and CE (Common Era = AD). the religion of the Jews, a monotheistic religion that holds that God's presence is experienced in human actions and history. It is the expression of a set of beliefs and values that is discerned in patterns of action, social order, and culture. Judaism maintains that the Jewish community was directly confronted by the divine; that the relationship, berit (covenant), then established is continual; and that that relationship is significant for all mankind. God is viewed as the divine Giver of Torahin its broadest traditional sense, the Hebrew Scriptures and Judaism's oral traditions (Mishna and Talmud), theological affirmations, historical recollections, ethical obligations, ritual and ceremonial observances, and interpretations of its authoritative texts (Midrash). By choosing the Jews as the object of the divine blessing, God also chose them as its channel to all mankind, requiring them to obey the structures of the Torah and to act as witness for the other peoples of the world. Abraham, the founder of Judaism, is believed to have left Harran in northern Mesopotamia for Canaan (roughly modern Israel and Lebanon) in the mid-20th century BCE (Before the Common Era). From there, the seminomadic descendants of Abraham and his sons Isaac and Jacobby then, 12 Hebrew familiesmigrated to Egypt, where they were enslaved for several generations before the Exodus in the 13th century BCE and the Israelites' return to Canaan. The religion of the patriarchs, like Judaism throughout the ages, was therefore exposed to crosscurrents of foreign thought that included influences from Mari, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, and Egypt. The God of Israel is identified as the Creator of the world, who was not discovered by Abraham but who entered into a covenant with him. God fulfilled his promises to Abraham through Moses, who led the Exodus, imposed further covenantal obligations on Israel at Mt. Sinai, and brought his people to Canaan. In the patriarchal stories, settlement in Canaan is an integral part of God's fulfillment of the Covenant. The experience of the Egyptian captivity reaffirmed this belief but also the belief that the God of Israel was Lord of all the Earth, regardless of territory. Further features of Judaism emerged with Moses, including the basic belief that it is the ability to make an ethical choice that defines mankind. All men are, therefore, in a covenant relationship with God, a relationship that Jews advance by example and witness. Mankind has a dual nature of obedience (good impulse) and disobedience (evil impulse) to God's law and, within this context, exercises ethical freedom in making choices between the two. Sin is viewed as deliberate disobedience of the Law, or Torah, and the return to Torah is considered a deliberate choice. Also, mankind's ethical nature extends to, and is interwoven with, the establishment of a just society. The conquest of Canaan was remembered as part of God's intervention and aid at the Exodus. New enemies, such as the Philistines, then appeared, and the period of upheaval described in the Book of Judges began. The religious bond between the 12 decentralized Israelite tribes allowed them to act together under the leadership of elders or champions. Numerous sanctuaries and altars were established on both sides of the Jordan River, and the Ark of the Covenant, although usually housed in the sanctuary at Shiloh, was considered to be a movable object. Out of the need for continuous leadership that was felt during the period of the Judges arose the call for a monarchy. Despite conservative religious opposition, Saul was anointed king c. 1021 BCE, but religious objections to a monarchy were not overcome until the reign of David c. 1000. It was David who conquered Jerusalem, established it as the national capital, and brought the ark to it as a shrine for the national God. The First Temple was built by David's son, Solomon, whose development of the kingship into a monarchy of international consequence gave rise to religious and secular opposition and the secession of the northern tribes c. 922 BCE. According to the Book of Kings, during the next 200 years foreign cults came to influence the Jewish religion. Approbation was brought especially against the northern kingdom (Israel), where a religious capital, Samaria, had been established in rivalry with Jerusalem. When King Ahab allowed his Tyrian wife, Jezebel, to worship her foreign gods in Israel, the prophet Elijah declared the entire north to be apostate. He further claimed, in one of the first equations of prosperity with God's interest, that a three-year drought was punishment for this sin. From the mid-9th to the mid-8th century BCE, Israel was engaged in chronic warfare with Aram. One result was the polarization of Israel's society between the wealthy few and the impoverished masses. Out of this situation arose the literary, or classical, prophets, the first of whom was Amos. He introduced the idea that violations of the socio-moral injunctions of the Covenant would set God against the community. When Assyria moved against Israel in the late 8th century, Hosea interpreted the new troubles as a result of the forgetting of God. The submission of King Ahaz of Judah to Assyria led the prophets Isaiah and Micah to introduce the eschatological theme into Jewish prophecy, telling of a future, truly holy community functioning on Earth as a normal sociopolitical unit under the leadership of an ideal ruler. The conquest of Judah by Babylonia and the subsequent Exile (from 597 BCE) led to an emphasis of the element of the future in this vision, as in the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and to the idea that the restoration of Israel would be a means of converting the world to Israel's God, as foretold by Deutero-Isaiah. The defeat of Babylon by Persia led to the end of the Exile and the restoration of Judah (from 538 BCE). Messianic hopes remained unfulfilled, however, and the prophetic period ended with Malachi's admonitions to follow the Torah of Moses. The Torah was recognized as the law of the land by Artaxerxes I in 444 BCE in a charter that required its publication. This fixing of the Torah then gave rise to the vast edifice of the Oral Law that is characteristic of Judaism. The conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE introduced the period of Hellenistic Judaism (4th century BCE2nd century CE [Common Era]). Greek influence on Jewish religion and culture was obvious by the early 2nd century BCE, when Hellenizing Jews came into control of the high priesthood itself. Decrees against the practice of Judaism by Antiochus IV Epiphanes resulted in the revolt by the Maccabees, from which dates the figure of the martyr in Judaism and Christianity. Despite the revolt, Hellenism continued apace, reaching its apogee during the reign (374 BCE) of Herod I of Judaea. Also during this period arose two groups of religious leaders, the Pharisees, who came to believe in the divine authorship of the Oral Law, and the Sadducees, who held to the written word of the Torah. During the Hellenistic period, there were major centres of Judaism in Syria, Asia Minor, Babylonia, and most particularly in Alexandria, Egypt. The Pentateuch was translated into Greekproducing the much Hellenized Septuagintand a considerable literature of history, poetry, drama, and philosophy was produced in Egypt. Roman rule, from 63 BCE to 135 CE, was marked by the attempt to establish an independent Jewish state. This aim was sought by the Herodians, the Zealots, and several quasi-monastic groups, each noted for its strict observance of the Torah. The rise of Christianity was by far the most important sectarian development of the Roman period, at a time when Israel's hope for the restoration of divine sovereignty over all mankind centred on the idea of an idealized king. Although Roman rule began auspiciously, increasingly hostile edicts from Rome led to a series of unsuccessful revolts, during the first of which (6673) the Second Temple was destroyed. From these disasters, Judaism turned inward to the continued development of the Talmud. Rabbinic Judaism, under which this development of the Talmud took place, stretched from the 2nd to the 18th century. In what is called the age of the tannaim (teachers), a high court in Palestine was headed by the patriarchs Simeon ben Gamaliel (c. 135c. 175) and Judah ha-Nasi (c. 175c. 220), who is credited with producing the final version of the Oral Law, called the Mishna. Promulgation of the Mishna initiated the age of the amoraim (lecturers, or interpreters). Taking the Mishna as the standard text, the amoraim of Palestine (c. 220c. 400) and Babylonia (c. 200c. 650) elucidated it, harmonized it with other texts, and applied its principles to new situations. They produced the Palestinian Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud, the latter becoming the central code of Jewish life. Although the death of the last patriarch, Gamaliel IV, c. 425 resulted in the political fragmentation of Mediterranean Jewry, the rules of the maintenance of the Jewish calendar and the rabbis ensured continuity of the Jewish community in Europe. In Babylonia the office of exilarch (head of the Exile) continued in symbiosis with the rabbinate from c. 100 until the mid-11th century. The rabbinate, transplanted from Palestine, successfully adapted the core and values of the Jewish legaltheological system to a new land. Following the expansion of Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries, the Babylonian religious leaders, or geonim, mediated their tradition to all Jewish communities. Despite a common religious basis, two branches of Jewish culture evolved during the Middle Ages. The Sephardic (AndalusianSpanish) community traced its cultural affiliation to Babylonia and was influenced by its Arabic-Muslim surroundings (see Sephardi). The Ashkenazic (Franco-German) community developed within the Latin-Christian culture of Europe and traced its background to Rome and Palestine (see Ashkenazi). Two forms of Jewish mysticism, in turn, emerged during this periodso-called medieval Hasidism (see Hasidism) among German Ashkenazim of the 12th century and a speculative brand of Kabbala (q.v.) among the Talmudic academies of Provence and northern Spain in the 13th century. The cultures of the Sephardim and Ashkenazim clashed in Provence and northern Spain. Resolution of the conflict was prevented, however, by attacks on the Talmud by Christian authorities and by the expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306, and the two strains of orthodoxy have continued to exist uneasily side by side. Persecutions of Jews in Europe, continuing into the 18th century, led to apostasy, marranism (ostensible conversion to Christianity), and the rise of extreme sects such as those of the pseudo-messiahs Shabbetai Tzevi and Jacob Frank. The 18th century was the time of the Haskala, or Jewish Enlightenment, in central and eastern Europe. In this period, Jews turned away from messianic beliefs and began to seek personal or national fulfillment on this Earth during their own lifetimes. Especially important was Moses Mendelssohn, whose Jerusalem (1783) defended the validity of Judaism and of his belief in a universal religion of reason. Together with Naphtali Herz Wessely, he produced a German Bible that served to introduce central European Jewry to German culture. The Haskala also had influence in eastern Europe and especially in Russia, where it was characterized by anti-clericalism and a call for practical social and economic reforms. Hebrew- and Russian-language literature flourished among writers who declared themselves to be Russians by nationality and Jews by religion. Yiddish literature, which had begun in the 12th and 13th centuries in eastern Europe, flowered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The pogroms of 1881, however, had brought an end to the movement. Out of the Haskala came Jewish religious reform, which began in western Europe during the Napoleonic period (180015). In France the reform was of doctrine, while in Germany it centred upon the aesthetic aspects of worship. German Reform became institutionalized in the 1840s and, although it was unsuccessful in most of Europe, it was imported readily into the United States, where it melded with earlier trends toward reform. From the Reform movement, in turn, came Conservative Judaism, which began in Germany in 1845. It also conceived of Judaism as a developmental religion but came to largely traditional conclusions about observance. Most European Jews rejected the reform movements. Although somemost notably the Hasidimcontinued to reject westernization entirely, most of them remained Orthodox in their religion while becoming Western in their manners and culture. As westernization developed, scholars began the secular study of Jewish history and literature and of Judaism's contributions to science, medicine, and mathematics. Jewish philosophers attacked the problem of continuity in a time when the Oral Law was no longer considered by most Jews to be divinely ordained. Among various answers, they posited Judaism as the bearer of the historical or of the moral process, as a very intense form of personal encounter with God, or as religious nationalism. Zionism (q.v.), in its secular aspects, can also be viewed as a result of the reform movement. Drawing upon 19th-century European nationalism and reacting to a virulent form of anti-Semitism, Zionists put forth a program of national regeneration and resettlement that culminated in the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Since the Holocaust of World War II, Judaism has become a non-European religion centred in Israel, the United States, and Russia and other former Soviet republics. World Jewry has come into conflict with the Arab nations, while within each community Judaism has been faced with increasing secularization. Nonetheless, there were signs of deep religious fervour and attachment to Judaism's traditions and sense of history. Additional reading General history Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2nd ed., 15 vol. (195273), a comprehensive presentation of the intertwined social and religious history with copious bibliographical information critically evaluated; Louis Finkelstein (ed.), The Jews: Their History, Culture and Religion, 4th ed., 3 vol. (197071), critical essays by outstanding authorities on the major aspects of Jewish history and culture; Julius Guttmann, Die Philosophie des Judentums (1933; Eng. trans., Philosophies of Judaism, 1964), the best single volume on the history of Jewish thought from ancient times to the present, especially valuable for medieval Jewish philosophy; Leo W. Schwarz (ed.), Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People (1956), interpretive and highly readable essays by six historians on Jewish history, with emphasis on intellectual history, intended primarily for the layman; Max L. Margolis and Alexander Marx, A History of the Jewish People (1927, reprinted 1958), an excellent, readable, introductory survey. See also Robert M. Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience in History (1980). Salo Wittmayer Baron Biblical Judaism (General reference): The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, 4 vol. (1962). (Surveys of the culture and religion of ancient Israel): Johannes Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture, 4 vol. in 2 (192640, reprinted 1959); W.F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity, 2nd ed. (1957); Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (1960) and The Babylonian Captivity and Deutero-Isaiah (1970); Roland De Vaux, Les Institutions de l'Ancien Testament, 2 vol. (195860; Eng. trans., Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, 1961); Gerhard Von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments, 2nd ed. (1958; Eng. trans., Old Testament Theology, 2 vol., 196265); Helmer Ringgren, Israelitische Religion (1963; Eng. trans., 1966). (Annual bibliographic keys): Elenchus Bibliographicus Biblicus, ed. by P. Nober (1920 ); Book List of the British Society for Old Testament Study. (Special topics): E.A. Speiser, The Biblical Idea of History in Its Common Near Eastern Setting, Oriental and Biblical Studies: Collected Writings of E.A. Speiser, ed. by J.J. Finkelstein and Moshe Greenberg, pp. 187210 (1967); Menahem Haran, The Religion of the Patriarchs: Beliefs and Practices, Patriarchs: The World History of the Jewish People, vol. 2, pp. 219245 (1970); Moshe Greenberg, Crimes and Punishments, Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 1, pp. 733744 (1962); Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law, The Jewish Expression, ed. by Judah Goldin, pp. 1837 (1970); Aelred Cody, A History of Old Testament Priesthood (1969); Johannes Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (1962); E.J. Bickerman, The Historical Foundations of Postbiblical Judaism, The Jews: Their History, Culture, and Religion, ed. by Louis Finkelstein, 4th ed., vol. 1, pp. 70114 (1960); Dan Jacobson, The Story of the Stories: The Chosen People and Its God (1982). Moshe Greenberg Hellenistic Judaism (Bibliographies): Gerhard Delling (ed.), Bibliographie zur jdisch-hellenistischen und intertestamentarischen Literatur 19001970, 2nd ed. (1975), extremely comprehensive bibliography on religion and literature of Diaspora Judaism, arranged according to topics, with separate bibliographies on every major Hellenistic Jewish author and on each book of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha; Ralph Marcus, A Selected Bibliography (19201945) of the Jews in the Hellenistic-Roman Period, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, 16:97181 (194647), covers both Palestine and the Diaspora, helpful for noting works that are useful introductions and works that are indispensable to the specialist; Louis H. Feldman, Scholarship on Philo and Josephus, 19371962 (1963), critical bibliography, arranged topically, with comments on both Diaspora and Palestinian Judaism generally. (Papyrological and archaeological sourcebooks): Victor A. Tcherikover, Alexander Fuks, and Menahem Stern (eds.), Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, 3 vol. (195764), contains text, translation, bibliography, and commentary on all papyri and inscriptions pertaining to Jews from 323 BCE to 641 CEthoroughly reliable; Erwin R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, 13 vol. (195368), a magnificent, exhaustive collection of the archaeological findings, with highly insightful, if controversial, commentary. (Standard scholarly treatments of Hellenistic Judaism): Victor A. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (1959; orig. pub. in Hebrew, 1930), extremely meticulous and generally balanced (though with an anti-theological bias), particularly in dealing with the political and social factors in both Palestinian and Diaspora Jewry; Robert H. Pfeiffer, History of New Testament Times, with an Introduction to the Apocrypha (1949), a sane and useful, if unoriginal, survey of the political, religious, and literary history of Palestinian and especially Diaspora Judaism, from 200 BCE to 200 CE; Moses Hadas, Hellenistic Culture: Fusion and Diffusion (1959), highly suggestive, though often extravagant, treatment of the interaction of Hellenism and other cultures, especially Judaism. (Introductory popular treatments of Hellenistic Judaism): Ralph Marcus, The Hellenistic Age, in Leo W. Schwarz (ed.), Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People, pp. 93139 (1956), extremely judicious and readable account by an eminent authority; for a readable guide to the literature, together with representative samples, see his Hellenistic Jewish Literature, in Louis Finkelstein (ed.), The Jews: Their History, Culture and Religion, 3rd. ed., vol. 2, pp. 10771115 (1960). (Works on Palestinian Judaism): George Foot Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, 3 vol. (192730, reprinted 196667), classic treatment based primarily on the Talmudic corpus, though the view of a Pharisaic normative Judaism has since been strongly challenged; Solomon Zeitlin, The Rise and Fall of the Judaean State: A Political, Social and Religious History of the Second Commonwealth, 2 vol. (196267), stimulating and often highly original survey of the period from 332 BCE to 66 CE, though the scholarly dogmatism is occasionally jarring; Saul Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine, 2nd ed. (1965), and Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 2nd ed. (1962), highly significant, ingenious, and learned illustrations of the influence of Greek culture on the language and exegetical format of the Palestinian rabbis. (Works on Diaspora Judaism): Harry A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, rev. ed., 2 vol. (1962), a great and seminal, though controversial, work that makes Alexandrian Judaism a collateral branch of Palestinian Pharisaic Judaism; Louis H. Feldman, The Orthodoxy of the Jews in Hellenistic Egypt, Jewish Social Studies, 22:215237 (1960), a survey using literature, papyri, and art objects to examine the synthesis of Greek culture and Judaism in the upper and lower classes, respectively, of Hellenistic Egypt. See also John J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (1983); and Menahem Mor and Uriel Rappaport, Bibliography of Works on Jewish History in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods (1982). Louis H. Feldman Rabbinic Judaism (Palestinian Judaism): Solomon Schechter, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology (1961), a concise, authoritative, and engaging treatment of classical (i.e., rabbinic) Judaism. (Babylonian Judaism): Jacob Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 5 vol. (196570; vol. 1, rev. 1969), the most comprehensive treatment of Babylonian Jewry during the Tannaitic and Amoraic periods. (Judeo-Arabic culture): S.D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts Through the Ages, 3rd rev. ed. (1974), a popular work by the ranking authority on all aspects of JewishArabic symbiosis, particularly valuable for the medieval period; Abraham Ibn Daud, Sefer ha-Qabbalah (The Book of Tradition), ed. and trans. by Gerson D. Cohen (1967), the classic medieval Hebrew chronicle with analytic essays on Spanish Jewry's golden age. ( Jews of medieval Europe): Israel Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, new ed. rev. by Cecil Roth (1932), delightful and erudite studies of social life and institutions in medieval Europe; Moritz Gdemann, Geschichte des Erziehungswesens und der Cultur der Juden, 3 vol. (188088), a social and intellectual history of medieval Ashkenazic Jewry (France, Germany, Italy); Cecil Roth, The Jews in the Renaissance (1959), lucid and informative, but with little critical analysis, valuable on Jewish contact with Christian men of letters; Gershom Scholem, Shabbethai Zevi, 2 vol. (1957), a penetrating and comprehensive study (in Hebrew) of the great false Messiah as well as of his religious antecedents and legacy; Stephen Sharot, Messianism, Mysticism, and Magic: A Sociological Analysis of Jewish Religious Movements (1982), an informative scholarly study. Gerson D. Cohen Modern Judaism The most convenient summary for the study of modern Jewish history is Howard Morley Sachar, The Course of Modern Jewish History, updated and expanded ed. (1977). Modern Jewish thought and movements are covered in a useful manual by Joseph Blau, Modern Varieties of Judaism (1966). Nathan Rotenstreich, Jewish Philosophy in Modern Times (1968); and the last (modern) section of Julius Guttman, Philosophies of Judaism (1964), are more advanced. The very best book on Jewish religion in the modern age is unfortunately still untranslated: Max Wiener, Jdische Religion im Zeitalter der Emanzipation (1933). For Zionism, see the only attempt at a comprehensive reader in English, Arthur Hertzberg (ed.), The Zionist Idea (1959). There are two excellent expositions of Judaism from a ReformLiberal point of view: Leon Roth, Judaism: A Portrait (1960); and Leo Baeck, The Essence of Judaism (1961). Conservative Judaism is well described in a book about its early history, Moshe Davis, The Emergence of Conservative Judaism (1963); and by Jacob Agus, Dialogue and Tradition (1969), the essays of a distinguished Conservative thinker. Reconstructionism is best understood in the words of its founder, Mordecai M. Kaplan, Judaism As a Civilization, 2nd ed. (1957). The standard modern single volume about Orthodox Judaism is Isidore Epstein, Judaism (1935). Neo-Hasidism was best described by its greatest exponent, Martin Buber, The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism (1960). Later studies include Eugene B. Borowitz, Choices in Modern Jewish Thought: A Partisan Guide (1983); Paul R. Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz (eds.), The Jew in the Modern World (1980); Dan Ross, Acts of Faith: A Journey to the Fringes of Jewish Identity (1982). Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg Basic beliefs and doctrines Kaufmann Kohler, Jewish Theology: Systematically and Historically Considered (1918, reprinted 1928); Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (1960; orig. pub. in Hebrew, 193756), an abridgment and translation of the work of one of the most influential Jewish biblical scholars of modern times; George Foot Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, 3 vol. (192730), a masterful work by a distinguished Christian student of Judaism; Solomon Schechter, Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology (1909, reprinted 1936 and 1961), an insightful presentation of the basic doctrines; Claude G. Montefiore and Herbert Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology (1960), a collection of materials from rabbinic sources, arranged under theologic headings, with ample notes and discussions; Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig (1964), a philosophy of Judaism in the form of a history of philosophy in Judaism; Arthur Hertzberg (ed.), Judaism (1961); Jacob Neusner, The Way of Torah: An Introduction to Judaism, 3rd ed. (1979), a very helpful statement using a history-of-religions approach; Leo Baeck, Dieses Volk; jdische Existenz, 2 vol. (195557; Eng. trans., This People Israel: The Meaning of Jewish Existence, 1964), a masterful interpretation of Jewish affirmations set within an historical context; Abraham E. Millgram (ed.), Great Jewish Ideas (1964), a collection of essays by various scholars setting forth classic positions, covering a wide range of theological ideas; Jacob B. Agus, The Jewish Quest (1983), a collection of essays on basic concepts of Jewish theology. Ethics and society Simon Bernfeld (comp.), The Foundations of Jewish Ethics, 2nd rev. ed. (1968), source materials covering Jewish history, with brief introductions by several notable scholars; Moritz Lazarus, Die Ethik des Judenthums, 2 vol. (18981911; Eng. trans., The Ethics of Judaism, 1900), a classic presentation from a 19th-century perspective; Samuel S. Cohon, Judaism: A Way of Life (1948), written from the Reform point of view but deeply sympathetic to a wide range of ideas. Jewish ethics is also explored in Anne Roiphe, Generation Without Memory: A Jewish Journey in Christian America (1981); and illustrated with literary examples in Francine Klagsbrun (comp.), Voices of Wisdom: Jewish Ideals and Ethics for Everyday Living (1980). Basic practices and institutions Lewis N. Dembitz, Jewish Services in Synagogue and Home (1898); Hayyim Schauss, The Jewish Festivals (1938; orig. pub. in Hebrew, 1933), and The Lifetime of a Jew Throughout the Ages of Jewish History (1950); Abraham Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Liturgy and Its Development (1932, reprinted 1967); Mark L. Raphael (ed.), Jews and Judaism in the United States: A Documentary History (1983); Shalom Lilker, Kibbutz Judaism: A New Tradition in the Making (1982). Art and iconography Franz Landsberger, A History of Jewish Art (1946); Abraham Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Music in Its Historical Development (1929, reprinted 1967); Cecil Roth (ed.), Jewish Art: An Illustrated History (1961). Relation with non-Judaic religions Leo Baeck, Judaism and Christianity (1958); Samuel Sandmel, We Jews and You Christians: An Inquiry into Attitudes (1967); Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism (1980); Francis E. Peters, Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam (1982). The role of Judaism in Western culture and civilization Cecil Roth, The Jewish Contribution to Civilization 3rd ed. (1956); Dennis B. Klein, Jewish Origins of the Psychoanalytic Movement (1981). The present-day forms of Judaism Leon D. Stitskin (ed.), Studies in Torah Judaism (1969); Alfred Jospe (ed.), Tradition and Contemporary Experience: Essays on Jewish Thought and Life (1970); Arnold Jacob Wolf (ed.), Rediscovering Judaism: Reflections on a New Theology (1965); The Condition of Jewish Belief: A Symposium, Compiled by the Editors of Commentary Magazine (1966); Mordecai M. Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization, 2nd ed. (1957); Solomon Poll, The Hasidic Community of Williamsburg: A Study in the Sociology of Religion (1969); Bernard Martin (ed.), Contemporary Reform Jewish Thought (1968); Charles Liebman, Orthodoxy in American Jewish Life, American Jewish Yearbook (1965); Mordecai Waxman (ed.), Tradition and Change: The Development of Conservative Judaism (1958); Joshua Rothenberg, The Jewish Religion in the Soviet Union (1972). Lou Hackett Silberman General introductions to Jewish philosophy Julius Guttmann, Die Philosophie des Judentums (1933; Eng. trans., Philosophies of Judaism, 1964), the best general treatment of Jewish philosophy from the ancient to the modern period, ending with Franz Rosenzweig; Nathan Rotenstreich, Jewish Philosophy in Modern Times: From Mendelssohn to Rosenzweig (1968), a good philosophical discussion of the major thinkers in modern Jewish philosophy, especially perceptive on Hermann Cohen. Alexander Altmann, Essays in Jewish Intellectual History (1981), a collection of insightful scholarly essays on many aspects of Jewish philosophy. Hellenistic philosophy Nahum Glatzer (ed.), The Essential Philo (1971), lengthy selections from the major works of Philo, with notes; Harry A. Wolfson, Philo, rev. ed., 2 vol. (1962), the most comprehensive study of Philo in any language, with special emphasis upon Philo's influence upon later philosophy. Medieval philosophy Isaac Husik, A History of Medieval Jewish Philosophy (1940, reprinted 1969), a thorough examination of each of the major medieval Jewish philosophers from Isaac Israeli through Joseph Albo, with good bibliography; Three Jewish Philosophers: Philo, Saadya Gaon, Jehuda Halevi, trans. and ed. by Hans Lewy, Alexander Altmann, and Isaak Heinemann (1965), a good introductory anthology containing representative selections from these classical figures with perceptive introductions and explanatory notes; Georges Vajda, Introduction la pense juive du moyen ge (1947), a good general survey organized around the major philosophical traditions in medieval Jewish philosophy, with extensive bibliography. Jewish kalam Sa'adia Ben Joseph, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, trans. by Samuel Rosenblatt (1948), Sa'adia's important philosophical work dealing with the major topics in Jewish theology such as faith and reason, creation, God, and reward and punishment; A Karaite Anthology, trans. and ed. by Leon Nemoy (1952), an excellent collection of the more accessible Karaite materials, covering a wide range of themes, writers, and periods; Israel Efros, Medieval Jewish Philosophy (1967), a collection of essays (in Hebrew) containing a full-length study of Sa'adia's philosophy, in addition to short essays on Judah ha-Levi and Maimonides. Jewish Neo-Platonism Isaac Israeli, Works, ed. and trans. by Alexander Altmann and S.M. Stern (1958), contains complete translations of three of Israeli's works and excerpts from another, together with a comprehensive essay on his philosophy; Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Fountain of Life, trans. from the Latin into Hebrew by J. Bluwstein (1950), in addition to a complete vocalized translation of the text this edition contains the Hebrew summary made by Shem Tov ibn Falaquera in the 13th century. Judah ha-Levi The Kuzari, trans. by Hartwig Hirschfeld (1964), a complete English translation of the text and notes, with an introductory essay by Henry Slonimsky; Leo Strauss, The Law of Reason in the Kuzari, in Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952), in addition to this perceptive and provocative essay on ha-Levi's attitude towards philosophy and rationalistic ethics, the book contains important essays on Maimonides and Spinoza; Bahya Ibn Paquda, The Duties of the Heart (Hebrew ed. by A. Zifroni, 1928; Eng. trans. by Edwin Collins, 1904), one of the more widely read medieval classics of Jewish philosophy, concentrating upon ethics and personal piety; Abraham Bar Hiyya, The Meditation of the Sad Soul, trans. with introduction by G. Wigoder (1971), one of the more accessible philosophical works of this important medieval astronomer and mathematician, devoted primarily to ethical and religious themes. Jewish Aristotelianism Abraham Ibn Daud, Das Buch Emunah Ramah, ed. and trans. into German by S. Weil (1852), one of the first manifestations of the Jewish assimilation of Aristotelian philosophy, containing a critique of Gabirol's neo-Platonism. Maimonides The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. with introductory essay by Shlomo Pines (1963), an accurate and clear translation, with an excellent essay by Pines and a valuable prefatory essay by Leo Strauss; A Maimonides Reader, ed. with introduction and notes by I. Twersky (1972), a fine anthology containing important material from Maimonides' Mishne Torah and other legal writings, as well as from his shorter philosophical-theological essays and the Guide; Harry A. Wolfson, Maimonides on Negative Attributes, in the Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume, pp. 411446 (1945), the best historical and analytical study of Maimonides' doctrine of divine attributes; and Halevi and Maimonides on Prophecy, Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s., 32:345370, 33:4982 (1942), an excellent historical analysis of the sources of doctrines of both philosophers on prophecy and a clear analysis of the differences between them. Isadore Twersky, Studies in Jewish Law and Philosophy (1982), is a collection of previously published articles, some of them in Hebrew. Averroists (Isaac Albalag): Georges Vajda, Isaac Albalag, Averroste juif, traducteur et annotateur d'Al-Ghazl (1960), a translation of and commentary on Albalag's main philosophical work, al-Ghazali's Inconsistencies of the Philosophers, containing valuable citations from the classical Arabic philosophical texts. (Levi ben Gerson): The Wars of the Lord (1866), Gersonides' major philosophical work (in Hebrew) dealing with the most difficult and controversial topics in medieval philosophy and science; Seymour Feldman, Gersonides' Proofs for the Creation of the Universe, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, 35:113137 (1967), an analytical study of Gersonides' theory of creation and of his criticism of Aristotle's theory of eternity of the universe. (Hasdai Crescas): The Light of the Lord (1861), Crescas' most original critique (in Hebrew) of Aristotelian philosophy and his vigorous defense of traditional Judaism; Harry A. Wolfson, Crescas' Critique of Aristotle (1929), the most important study of medieval Jewish and Arabic philosophy so far written, containing a translation and critical Hebrew text of part 1 of the treatise with comprehensive, detailed, and most valuable notes and introductory essay; Joseph Albo, Book of Principles, trans. with critical text by Isaac Husik, 4 vol. (1946), a fine translation with helpful notes of Albo's treatise in Jewish dogmatics. Modern Jewish philosophy (Iberian-Dutch philosophers): I.S. Rvah, Spinoza et le dr. Juan de Prado (1959), a study of the cultural background of Spinoza's Amsterdam, especially of the heterodox elements in Sefardic Judaism, containing valuable material pertaining to the excommunication of Spinoza and the ideas of Uriel da Costa; Baruch Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise, trans. by R.H.M. Elwes (1883, reprinted 1951), Spinoza's critique of the Bible and the Jewish religion; Leo Strauss, Spinoza's Critique of Religion (1965), an excellent philosophical study of Spinoza's Treatise, its relation to Maimonides, Uriel da Costa, and other Sefardic heterodox thinkers; Harry A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, 2 vol. (1934, reprinted 1969), a most detailed commentary on Spinoza's Ethics, containing valuable references to Spinoza's medieval sources such as Maimonides, Gersonides, and Crescas. German philosophers (Moses Mendelssohn): Jerusalem and Other Jewish Writings, trans. and ed. by Alfred Jospe (1969), a complete translation of Jerusalem and other miscellaneous writings, pertaining to questions on the Jewish religion, with a brief, informative, acute introduction by the editor; Julius Guttmann, Mendelssohn's Jerusalem and Spinoza's Theologico-Politico Treatise (in Hebrew) in his Religion and Knowledge (1956), a collection of Guttmann's essays that also includes important essays on ha-Levi, Maimonides, Gersonides, and Crescas, as well as on themes in modern philosophy of Judaism; Nachman Krochmal, Collected Works (1961, in Hebrew), containing his Guide for the Perplexed of Our Times, ed. by S. Rawidowicz and Rawidowicz' comprehensive analytical study of Krochmal's philosophy of Jewish history and its relationship to Hegelian philosophy. (Hermann Cohen): Die Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums (1919, reprinted 1966), Cohen's major work dealing with his philosophy of Judaism, organized according to the main themes of the Jewish religion; Reason and Hope: Selections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann Cohen, trans. and ed. by Eva Jospe (1971), a useful collection from Cohen's miscellaneous writings on Jewish themes. (Franz Rosenzweig): The Star of Redemption, trans. by William Hallo (1971), Rosenzweig's early but impressive statement of his re-conversion to Judaism, which has been influential in contemporary Jewish and non-Jewish theology; Nahum Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought, 2nd ed. (1961), an excellent anthology of Rosenzweig's various writings, containing many letters that reveal the more important and intimate episodes in Rosenzweig's career. Interpretive studies include Emil L. Fackenheim, To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish Thought (1982); Arthur A. Cohen, The Tremendum: A Theological Interpretation of the Holocaust (1981); Alfred Jospe (ed.), Studies in Jewish Thought: An Anthology of German Jewish Scholarship (1981). Shlomo Pines Jewish mysticism G.G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, rev. ed. (1961), the standard survey of the subject, with a chapter-by-chapter bibliography, On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism (Eng. trans. 1965), several studies on some of the great themes of Jewish mysticism; A.E. Waite, The Holy Kabbalah: A Study of Secret Tradition in Israel (1929), a theosophical view of Jewish mysticism. Hugo Odeberg, 3 Enoch; or the Hebrew Book of Enoch (1928); Isidor Kalisch, A Book on Creation (1877); J. Abelson, The Immanence of God in Rabbinical Literature (1912); G.G. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (1960); Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition (1939, paperback 1961). G.G. Scholem, Ursprung and Anfnge der Kabbala (1962; French trans., Les Origines de la Kabbale, 1966); Le commentaire d'Ezra de Grone sur le Cantique des Cantiques, trans. by G. Vajda (1969); The Zohar, trans. by H. Sperling and M. Simon, 5 vol. (193134; paperback, sel. and ed. by G.G. Scholem, 1963). Moses Cordovero, The Palm Tree of Deborah, trans. from the Hebrew by L. Jacobs, 3rd ed. (1981); Raphael J. Zwi Werblowsky, Joseph Karo: Lawyer and Mystic (1962). L.I. Newman, The Hasidic Anthology (Eng. trans. 1963); Dob Baer of Lubavitch, Tract on Ecstasy, trans. from the Hebrew by L. Jacobs (1963). Martin Buber, The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism (Eng. trans. 1960); S.H. Dresner, The Zaddik: The Doctrine of the Zaddik Accord