American Judaism Religion

This magisterial work (winner of the National Jewish Book Award and other honors) chronicles the 350-year history of the Jewish religion in America. Tracing American Judaism from its origins in the colonial era through the present day, Jonathan Sarna explores the ways in which Judaism adapted in this new context. How did American culture - predominantly Protestant and overwhelmingly capitalist - affect Jewish religion and culture?

Judaism is one of the oldest religions in the world, and it has preserved its distinctive identity despite the extraordinarily diverse forms and beliefs it has embodied over the course of more than three millennia. A History of Judaism provides the first truly comprehensive look in one volume at how this great religion came to be, how it has evolved from one age to the next, and how its various strains, sects, and traditions have related to each other.

Antisemitism, an American Tradition investigates the depths of this fraught history and its recent manifestations. At a time when prejudice, discrimination, and hate against Jews is flaring across the country, Antisemitism, an American Tradition argues that we must understand the past. This momentous work reveals how antisemitism—and resistance to that hatred—endures, representing not a rupture from America's history, but a centuries-old legacy.

The author assembles a vast array of anecdotes, facts, stories, legends, archaeological discoveries, language comparisons, and speculation from a large collection of different sources to support the claim that the American Indians are descendants of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.

In this book, Douglas Wilson calls us to simple, biblical sanity, with clear thinking on Christian/Jewish relations, the Middle East, and the Holocaust, as well as a thorough Reformed theology of the Jews and the Church.

Why has Christianity, a religion premised upon neighborly love, failed in its attempts to heal social divisions? In this ambitious and wide-ranging work, Willie James Jennings delves deep into the late medieval soil in which the modern Christian imagination grew, to reveal how Christianity's highly refined process of socialization has inadvertently created and maintained segregated societies.

In Fear No Pharaoh, journalist and historian Richard Kreitner sets this question at the heart of the Civil War era. Using original sources, he tells the intertwined stories of six American Jews who helped to shape a tumultuous time, including Judah Benjamin, the brilliant, secretive lawyer who became Jefferson Davis's trusted confidante; Morris Raphall, a Swedish-born rabbi who defended slavery as biblically justified; and Raphall's rival rabbis—the celebrated Isaac Mayer Wise, who urged Jews to stay out of the slavery controversy, and David Einhorn.

Today, many Jewish Americans are embracing a dual religious identity, practicing Buddhism while also staying connected to their Jewish roots. This book tells the story of Judaism's encounter with Buddhism in the United States, showing how it has given rise to new contemplative forms within American Judaism - and shaped the way Americans understand and practice Buddhism. Taking listeners from the 19th century to today, Emily Sigalow traces the history of these two traditions in America and explains how they came together.

Normon Solomon's succinct book is an ideal introduction to Judaism as a religion and way of life. Demonstrating the diverse nature and ethnic origin of Jewish people, Solomon explores how the religion has developed in the 2,000 years since the days of the Bible.

In 1654, 23 Jewish families arrived in New Amsterdam (now New York) aboard a French privateer. They were the Sephardim, members of a proud orthodox sect that had served as royal advisors and honored professionals under Moorish rule in Spain and Portugal but were then exiled by intolerant monarchs. A small, closed, and intensely private community, the Sephardim soon established themselves as businessmen and financiers. They became powerful forces in society, with some, like banker Haym Salomon, even providing financial support to George Washington's army during the American Revolution.

What does it mean to be a Jewish woman in America? In a gripping historical narrative, Pamela S. Nadell weaves together the stories of a diverse group of extraordinary people - from the colonial-era matriarch Grace Nathan and her great-granddaughter, poet Emma Lazarus, to labor organizer Bessie Hillman and the great justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to scores of other activists, workers, wives, and mothers who helped carve out a Jewish American identity.

Olive trees, like the Jewish people, never die. This is why the olive tree symbolizes Israel.Olives are popular and can be used for a variety of things, from food to cleansing and healing - however, you can't avoid the pits!This book shares the many "pits" my husband and I have encountered during our past 43 years living in Israel, and how we became overcomers by the "Amazing Grace" of G-d. Whether you are visiting, or coming here to stay, may our story encourage and inspire you to believe the words of Jeremiah 32:41: I will rejoice in doing them good, and faithfully plant them in this land...

The situation of American Jews today is deeply paradoxical. Jews have achieved unprecedented integration, influence, and esteem in virtually every facet of American life. But this extraordinarily diverse community now also faces four critical and often divisive challenges: rampant intermarriage, weak religious observance, diminished cohesion in the face of waning anti-Semitism, and deeply conflicting views about Israel.

Explore las vibrantes culturas mágicas populares y su historia, tradiciones y creencias. ¿Alguna vez ha sentido curiosidad por los distintos rituales y tradiciones mágicas que se practican en diferentes partes del mundo? ¿Alguna vez se ha sentido confundido acerca de la diferencia entre la magia Wicca y el paganismo nórdico? ¿Es su objetivo aprender rituales y prácticas mágicas tal y como se enseñaban en diversas culturas?

Marguerite Young had a complex and non-traditional view of religion that heavily influenced her writing. As a descendant of both Mormon leader Brigham Young and Protestant reformer John Knox, she was interested in utopian societies and used religious imagery to explore themes of illusion, reality, and mythology. She was a descendant of two very different religious figures: Brigham Young, the leader of the Latter-day Saint movement, and John Knox, a key figure in the Scottish Reformation. Her maternal grandmother, who raised Young, experienced delusions (she suffered from a stroke) that ...

A noted biblical scholar explores how the claim of divine choice has been used from ancient times to the present to justify territorial expansion and prejudice. The Bible describes many individuals and groups as specially chosen by God. But does God choose at all? Michael Coogan explains the...

"In this thoughtful book, Ken Woodward offers us a memorable portrait of the past seven decades of American life and culture. From Reinhold Niebuhr to Billy Graham, from Abraham Heschel to the Dali Lama, from George W. Bush to Hillary Clinton, Woodward captures the personalities and charts the...

Imagine awakening to a new reality of who you are, revealing a hidden past that has shaped your family's history for centuries. Fact, not fiction, this experience has been shared by thousands of descendants of Sephardic Jews who fled Spain and Portugal in the 15th and 16th centuries, seeking safe haven from the ruthless Spanish Inquisition. Many had already converted to Catholicism, but learned that conversion was not enough to save their lives. They established new communities throughout the world, living as Catholics on the outside, but guarding a precious Jewish heritage in secret.

Abram Singer is a Catholic priest with an unusual name and a dark secret. Against the backdrop of gritty 1970s New York, in a simple, straightforward style, he tells us his story. The son of an absent Jewish father and a devout Italian mother, Abram was drawn to the meaningful structure of the...

Before Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King was identified with Moses, African Americans identified those who challenged racial oppression in America with Samson. In Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon, Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper tell the story of how this biblical character became an icon of African American literature.