Chapter 3A – Judaism
General Works
by Dr. Sarah Imhoff
Dr. Sarah Imhoff is an Assistant Professor in the
Religious Studies and Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University,
Bloomington.
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Isolating Judaism from other aspects of Jewishness, such as
language, foodways, geography, and heredity, presents a nearly impossible task.
Any discussion of Judaism as a religion will necessarily touch on one or many
of the other aspects of Jewishness. Furthermore, both historical and
contemporary contexts demonstrate a wide variety of Jewish belief and practice,
even when artificially confined to the religious sphere. Nevertheless, some
scholarly works effectively demarcate some of the historical and theological
trends across social contexts. Michael Satlow’s Creating Judaism uses texts from throughout Jewish history to
demonstrate both the vast diversity and the common threads among Jewish
religious movements and communities.
Discussions of Jewish theology - as well as whether or not
Judaism can even be said to have a theology - provide avenues into analyzing
broad concepts within Judaism. Alfred Jospe’s collection of German Jewish
philosophy, Studies in Jewish Thought,
includes portions of many canonical works. Arthur Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr
issued a collection of essays on philosophical concepts and religious terms in Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought.
Arthur Cohen’s Arguments and Doctrines
presents challenges and revisions to Jewish thought in the wake of the
Holocaust. For particular thinkers, Mamre
presents a collection of existentialist philosopher Martin Buber’s essays; Abraham Isaac Kook: The Lights of Penitence
collects the essays and letters of the twentieth century Kabbalist and Zionist
rabbi; Abraham Joshua Heschel’s The
Insecurity of Freedom brings together essays showing a vast array of the
mid-twentieth century thinker’s Jewish engagement
with the world around him; Arthur Green’s
These are the Words articulates a
theology of Jewish renewal in a contemporary context.
Some resources are helpful for those with specific questions
about Jewish law or practices. Jewish dictionaries and encyclopedias abound.
For reference works, the Encyclopedia
Judaica remains the most complete, but Louis Jacobs’s alphabetically
organized The Jewish Religion gives
the material an engaging, albeit neither narrative nor complete, treatment.
Andrew Bush’s Jewish Studies presents
a history of the field of Jewish Studies in theoretical terms; however, it is
not “introductory,” as the title might suggest.
3A Judaism General Works
Recommended Reading
by Dr. Sarah Imhoff
Buber, Martin. Mamre, Essays in Religion. Melbourne University Press, 1946.
Bush, Andrew. Jewish Studies: A Theoretical Introduction. Rutgers University Press, c2011.
Cohen, Arthur Allen. Arguments and Doctrines; A Reader of Jewish Thinking
in the Aftermath of the Holocaust.
Harper & Row, 1970.
Cohen, Arthur and Mendes-Flohr, Paul. Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought:
Original Essays on Critical Concepts, Movements and Beliefs. Scribner, c1987.
Green, Arthur. These are the Words: A Vocabulary of Jewish Spiritual
Life. Jewish Lights, 1999.
Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence. Farrar, Straus & Giruox, 1966.
Jacobs, Louis. The Jewish Religion: A Companion. Oxford University Press, 1995.
Jospe, Alfred. Studies in Jewish Thought: An Anthology of German
Jewish Scholarship. Wayne State
University Press, 1981.
Kook, Abraham Isaac. Abraham Isaac Kook: The Lights of Penitence, the Moral
Principles, Lights of Holiness, Essays, Letters, and Poems. Paulist Press, 1978.
Satlow, Michael L. Creating Judaism: History, Tradition, Practice. Columbia University Press, c2006.
Skolnik, Fred. Encyclopedia Judaica. Macmillan Reference USA, 2006.
3A - Judaism General Works
Additional Reading
Caplan, Samuel. The Great Jewish Books and Their Influence on History. Horizon Press, 1952.
Cohen, Morris Raphael. Reflections of a Wondering Jew. Beacon Press, 1950.
Cohen, Norman J. The Way into Torah. Jewish Lights Publishing, 2000.
Dan, Joseph. Studies in Jewish Thought. Praeger, 1989.
Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning. Studies and
Essays in Honor of Abraham A. Neuman, President, Dropsie College for Hebrew and
Cognate Learning, Philadelphia. E.J.
Brill for the Dropsie College, Philadelphia, 1962.
Eisenberg, Joyce. JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words, Jewish Publication Society, 2001.
El-Or, Tamar. Next Year I Will Know More: Literacy and Identity
Among Young Orthodox Women in Israel.
Wayne State University Press, c2002.
Garber, Zev. Academic Approaches to Teaching Jewish Studies. University Press of America, 2000.
Glatzer, Nahum N. The Judaic Tradition: Texts. Behrman House, 1982, c1969.
Hertzberg, Arthur. Judaism. G.
Braziller, 1961.
Isaacs, Ronald H. The Jewish Information Source Book: A Dictionary and
Almanac. Jason Aronson, 1993.
Jacobs, Louis. Modern Jewish Thought; Selected Issues 1889-1966, Arno Press, 1973.
Jung, Leo. The Jewish Library. Macmillan, 1928.
Kanarfogel, Ephraim. Jewish Education and Society in the High Middle Ages. Wayne State University Press, 1992.
Kolatch, Alfred J. Great Jewish Quotations. Jonathan David Publishers, 1996.
Leaman, Oliver. Judaism: An Introduction. I. B. Tauris, 2011.
Marcus, Ivan G. Rituals of Childhood: Jewish Acculturation in Medieval
Europe. Yale University Press, 1996.
Neusner, Jacob. Dictionary of Judaism in the Biblical Period: 450 bce to 600 ce Macmillan
Library Reference, 1996.
Neusner, Jacob. The Blackwell Companion to Judaism. Blackwell Publishers, 2000.
Neusner, Jacob. The Encyclopedia of Judaism. Continuum, 1999.
Olitzky, Kerry M. A Glossary of Jewish Life. J. Aronson, 1992.
Rosenak, Michael. Roads to the Palace: Jewish Texts and Teaching. Berghahn Books, 1995.
Runes, Dagobert David. Concise Dictionary of Judaism. Philosophical Library, 1959.
Solomon, Norman. Historical Dictionary of Judaism. Scarecrow Press, 1998.
Terry, Michael. Reader's Guide to Judaism. Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000.
Werblowsky, R. J. Zwi. The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion. Adama Books, 1986.
Werblowsky, R. J. Zwi. The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion. Oxford University Press, 1997.
Wigoder, Geoffrey. The
New Encyclopedia of Judaism. New York University