Religion or Ethnicity?

by Gitelman, Zvi

• ISBN13: 9780813544519
• ISBN10: 0813544513
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-07-01
• Publisher: Rutgers Univ Pr

Summary

In Religion or Ethnicity? fifteen leading scholars trace the evolution of Jewish identity. The book examines Judaism from the Greco-Roman age, through medieval times, modern western and eastern Europe, to today. Jewish identity has been defined as an ethnicity, a nation, a culture, and even a race.

Author Biography

Zvi Gitelman is a professor of political science and Tisch Professor of Judaic studies at the University of Michigan. He is also a research scientist at the University's Center for Russian and East European Studies. He has written or edited numerous works on the Jews of Eastern Europe, including Jewish Life After the USSR and A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Jewish Religion, Jewish Ethnicity-The Evolution of Jewish Identities	p. 1
Jewishness and Judaism in the Premodern Era	p. 5
Secularism, Hellenism, and Rabbis in Antiquity	p. 7
What Is a Judaism? Perspectives from Second Temple Jewish Studies	p. 24
Crypto-Jewish Criticism of Tradition and Its Echoes in Jewish Communities	p. 38
Spinoza and the Origins of Jewish Secularism	p. 59
Challenges of Secular Jewishness in Modern Times	p. 67
Yiddish Schools in America and the Problem of Secular Jewish Identity	p. 69
Beyond Assimilation: Introducing Subjectivity to German-Jewish History	p. 90
Jewish Self-Identification and West European Categories of Belonging: From the Enlightenment to World War II	p. 104
People of the (Secular) Book: Literary Anthologies and the Making of Jewish Identity in Postwar America	p. 131
Secular Jewishness in Israel Today	p. 147
Secular-Jewish Identity and the Condition of Secular Judaism in Israel	p. 149
Beyond the Religious-Secular Dichotomy: Masortim in Israel	p. 171
What Kind of Jewish State Do Israelis Want? Israeli and Arab Attitudes toward Religion and Politics	p. 193
The Construction of Secular and Religious in Modern Hebrew Literature	p. 221
Secular Jewishness in the Diaspora Today	p. 239
Jewish Identity and Secularism in Post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine	p. 241
Judaism, Community, and Jewish Culture in American Life: Continuities and Transformations	p. 267
Beyond Apikorsut: A Judaism for Secular Jews	p. 286
Conclusion: The Nature and Viability of Jewish Religious and Secular Identities	p. 303
Contributors	p. 323
Index	p. 325
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