Category Archives: Judaism

Desirable But Dangerous: Rabbis Daughters in the Babylonian Talmud

Dvora Weisberg from Hebrew Union College writes: In classical rabbinic literature, women are an anomaly. Rabbinic law sometimes treats women like persons and at other times like chattel.1 Non-legal texts some times characterize women in positive terms and portray individual … Continue reading

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Resisting History: Historicism and Its Discontents in German-Jewish Thought

Peter E. Gordon reviews this 2003 book by UCLA professor David N. Myers: * Historicism, as Meinecke and Troeltsch meant it, was born as a specifically German romantic reaction against the Enlightenment’s idea of a single, universal human nature. The … Continue reading

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Are Jews Waiting For The Messiah?

Marc B. Shapiro writes: In response to R. Bergman’s point, about the need to actively wait for the Messiah, R. Steinman replies that no one fulfills this, namely, no one is really waiting for the Messiah. My understanding of what … Continue reading

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Tradition in Transition: Orthodoxy, Halakhah, and the Boundaries of Modern Jewish Identity

Marc B. Shapiro writes circa 1992: Hildesheimer came down firmly on the side of Orthodoxy. In his mind, Frankel, Graetz, and other professors at Breslau were heretics. Not only was Frankel a meshumad—which made him even worse than an apikores—but … Continue reading

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Judaism & The Trinity

Marc B. Shapiro writes: Throughout Jewish literature one can find any number of explanations as to how the notion of the Trinity is in direct opposition to Jewish teachings, since Judaism demands a simple, unified God. There is no doubt … Continue reading

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