----------------------- Message requiring your approval ---------------------- From: "Lieve Teugels" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [ha-Safran]: Jewish Studies at Gorgias Press
Gorgias Press is glad to present to following titles in Jewish Studies:
**********
New Series: Judaism in Context
Edited by Lieve Teugels, Naomi Koltun-Fromm, and Rivka Ulmer.
Judaism in Context is a series of monographs and collections focusing on the relations between Jews, Judaism, and Jewish culture and the other peoples, religions, and cultures among whom Jews have lived and flourished. The works in this series pay close attention to the nature and results of these cross-cultural interactions throughout the ages as well as cover various aspects of Jewish religion, history, and society such as cultural manifestations, religious identity, ethnicity, theology, and literary creations.
Volume 1.
Joseph H. Prouser. Noble Soul. The Life and Legend of the Vilna Ger Tzedek Count Walenty Potocki. 2005. [230 pp.] List Price $65.
In the long history of conversion to Judaism, few figures rival the affection and esteem with which Count Walenty (Valentine) Potocki, the martyred �Vilna Ger Tzedek,� is remembered. The story of the young Polish nobleman, burned at the stake in 1749, is that of a principled and sensitive spiritual seeker who abandoned wealth, power, and all but unlimited worldly prospects in order to adopt Judaism, a religious tradition that was anathema to his noble class. Potocki was betrayed by a member of the religious community he embraced, and executed as an apostate by the Church he left behind, and which his family had served with distinction. Potocki�s religious journey took him from the comfort of his magnatial family origins to Parisian saloons, to the academies of Pope Benedict XIV�s <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Rome, to the Rabbinic Court of Amsterdam, to a modest Jewish community in Poland, where he gave his life for the Judaism he loved.
Noble Soul examines eleven versions of Potocki�s life story, drawn from works in Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish, German, and English, as well as heated, previously unpublished correspondence between the powerful Potocki clan and an early Ger Tzedek biographer. The historical, religious, and literary context of these documents is explored in careful detail.
Noble Soul is the record of one man�s defining faith, and of the compelling human need for personal spiritual fulfillment.
**********
Jewish Studies Classics
Editor: Lieve M. Teugels
The Jewish Studies Classics (JSC) series brings back to academia standard works in Jewish Studies, which remain to be very desirable among scholars in the field, written in English, German and Hebrew. The first volumes in the series are works from the 19th and early 20th century scholars of the Wissenschaft des Judentums and their followers. Each title is reproduced from the original, with a new introduction by a contemporary scholar. The series is expected to be received enthusiastically not only by institutional libraries, but also by scholars of Judaism who will now be able to add these standard works to their home libraries. Hard-cover.
The following titles are now available:
******
JSC 1. Leopold Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vortr�ge der Juden reprint of the 1919 edition with a New Introduction by Prof. Rivka Kern-Ulmer. [xvi + 516 pp.] List price: $65.
Leopold Zunz (1794-1886) was the founding father of the �Wissenschaft des Judentums�, an intellectual movement that originated among Jewish academics in Germany in the early 1900�s. His pamphlet �Etwas ueber die rabbinische Literatur� (�Something about Rabbinic Literature�), published in 1818, marked the official start of this new, academic, approach to the traditional Jewish Literature. He co-founded the Verein fuer Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden in 1819, and its journal, the Zeitschrift fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums. Besides a revolutionary new approach to the study of Jewish Literature and History, Zunz aimed at a reforms in Jewish Liturgy and strived for political and cultural recognition of Jews in German society. Die gottesdienstlichen Vortr�ge der Juden deals with biblical interpretation and homiletics from the Bible up to his own time. It is still a standard work on this subject.
�[Zunz's] researches served as the foundation and the example for the "Science of Judaism."� (Nachum Glatzer in Encyclopaedia Judaica)
�I know of no Jewish scholar in modern times who does not revere in him the master� (Louis Ginzberg, Introduction to the first volume of Ginze Schechter)
******
JSC 2. Louis Ginzberg and Israel Davidson (eds.), Genizah Studies in Memory of Doctor Solomon Schechter (Hebr. title: Ginze Schechter), 3 Vols, reprint of the 1928 ed. with a New Introduction by Prof. Burton L. Visotzky. [xvi + 516 pp.; xv +640 pp.; xix + 338 pp.] List price: $140.
A collection of studies about Hebrew texts found in the Cairo Geniza, in honor of Solomon Schechter (1847�1915) by his colleagues. Schechter discovered these documents in Egypt and partly investigated hem. Vol. 1 by Louis Ginzberg covers Midrash and Haggadah; Vol. 2, ibid. deals with Halakah; Vol. 3 by Israel Davidson describes the Liturgical and Secular Poetry.
Louis Ginzberg (1873�1953) was born in Lithuania. He studied history, philosophy, and oriental languages at the universities of Berlin, Strasbourg, and Heidelberg. In 1903 he became professor of Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He was one of the main founders of Conservative Judaism in the US. He was a scholar of Talmud, Midrash, and aggadah and a researcher of the Geniza. His best-known work is The Legends of the Jews (7 vols., 1909�38), a collection of legends from the entire midrashic literature.
Israel Davidson (1870�1939), was born in Lithuania. He emigrated to the United States and studied at Columbia University. He became teacher of Talmud and, in 1915, professor of medieval Hebrew literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Davidson's most important work is the 4-volume Thesaurus of Medieval Hebrew Poetry (1925�38).
******
JSC 3. Solomon Schechter, Studies in Judaism, 3 vols., reprint of the 1896�1924 ed. with a new Introduction. [ca. 1,000 pp.] List price: $140.
Solomon Schechter (Shneur Zalman; 1847�1915) was born in Rumania. He studied at the Berlin Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums and at the University of Berlin. He became in Professor of rabbinics at Cambridge University and later professor of Hebrew at University College, London. He is most famous for his discovery and investigation of the Cairo Geniza, a treasury of ancient book and manuscripts in the synagogue of Fustat, near Cairo. Schechter became president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York in 1902. He is considered the chief architect of Conservative Judaism in the U.S.
Studies in Judaism is a collection of studies about various topics in Jewish Studies by this great scholar. The subjects span the whole length and breadth of Jewish History and Literature, from �A Hoard of Hebrew Manuscripts in Judaism� to �The Dogmas of Judaism�, and from "Safed in the Sixteenth Century" to �Abraham Geiger- Leopold Zunz�.
�Schechter's Studies in Judaism (...) remain indispensable documents of American Jewish religious Conservatism.� (Meir Ben-Horin in Encyclopaedia Judaica)
**********
Sukenik, Eleazar Lipa. The Ancient Synagogue of Beth Alpha. An Account of the Excavations Conducted on Behalf of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (Reprint with a New Introduction by Professor Steven Fine). 2003 . List Price $180.
Final report of the excavation of the Beth Alpha synagogue. Richly illustrated. The English and Hebrew versions of the book appear for the first time in one volume. Now with a new introduction and additional illustrations. Beautiful cloth cover
**********
Graetz, Naomi. S/He Created Them. Feminist Retellings of Biblical Tales, 2003. [130 pp]. List Price $25.
A contemporaneous & religiously meaningful retelling of biblical stories by a feminist who looks at the intimate lives of the people who inhabit the Bible and imaginatively rediscovers a past in which biblical women were active participants.
�[Graetz] has injected the tales with a totally different point of view. Her unique twist may come through any character. The stories make for easy and enjoyable reading� Louise Sobin Hersh in Women�s League for Conservative Judaism Outlook 74/4 (Summer 2004) p. 30.
**********
Graetz, Naomi, Unlocking the Garden: A Feminist Jewish Look at the Bible, Midrash, and God. 2005 [200 pp.] List Price $28.
Unlocking the Garden: A Feminist Jewish Look at the Bible, Midrash, and God is a collection of 15 articles which are exemplars of the state of the art of feminist Jewish interpretation of biblical texts. In these articles Naomi Graetz explores some of the reasons why biblical women are extolled in post-biblical sources when they adhere to their prescribed roles yet deprecated by these same midrashic sources when they speak up. The author demonstrates that much of present-day thinking about Jewish marriage is conditioned by metaphors. She discusses the theological implications of the dangerous marriage metaphor which describes God and Israel in an abusive husband and wife relationship and addresses the problem of God�s responsibility for Israel�s suffering.
Graetz combats the approach of rabbinical midrash, not only by critique, but by writing Jewish midrash that is consciously feminist in its intent.
**********
Bregman, M. The Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Literature: Studies in the Evolution of the Versions, 2003 [Hebrew]. [x + 299 pp.]. List Price $65.
This study of Tanhuma-Yelammedenu midrash includes a survey of previous research, a catalogue of textual witnesses, a synoptic analysis of four versions of midrashic material to one biblical lection and general conclusions about the multifaceted evolution of this important genre of midrashic literature.
This is a Hebrew-language book with an extensive introduction in English.
�Bregman�s book is undoubtedly the best research ever done about the most complicated issue in the study of rabbinic literature: the Tanhuma-type Midrashim. Based on a vast knowledge of the history of rabbinic literature, an admirable power of innovation and impressive capability of synthesis, this book lays the foundations for all future scholarship of a very important stratum in the literature of ancient Judaism.� (Prof. Avigdor Shinan)
�At last�an excellent exposition of the nature of the Tanhuma literature which takes into account all the textual and historical aspects of the problem� (Prof. Chaim Milikowsky)
**********
New and forthcoming in Gorgias Dissertations: Jewish Studies
Moss, Joshua L. Midrash and Legend: Historical Anecdotes in the Tannaitic Midrashim, 2003. [ix + 678]. List Price $65.
This study collects every example of a historical anecdote in the tannaitic midrashim. These stories are of particular interest from an inter-religious and comparative literary point of view, because New Testament studies have often referred to certain narratives in the gospels as �midrashic�. There are indeed some dynamics shared in common between the two genres of gospel narrative and rabbinic anecdote. Both are didactic accounts; both represent transmitted material shaped to function in specific contexts. But the fundamental matrices governing each genre are strikingly different. In this study the author sets forth, in positive terms, an understanding of what functions historical anecdotes serve in the tannaitic midrashim, along with a catalog of the rhetorical conventions used to fulfill those functions. The data does not bear out the notion that each collection has a rigid ideological program, but it certainly bears out the notion that different documents exhibit different preferences of style, of authorities, of argumentation, and of sources. In the anecdotes of the tannaitic midrash collections we find a body of texts which, in highly formalized fashion, described behaviors and conversations of sages which provided legal information serving to fill in gaps discovered in Scripture by means of exegesis, or served to illustrate virtues revealed in Scripture. Their actions are paradigmatic, timeless, and normative, providing sources of law or elucidations of law.
**********
Freedman, Daphne. Man as the Subject of the Theogony in the Lurianic Cabala. 2005. List Price $65.
Lurianic mythology represents an intensely personal view, in which earlier cabalistic symbolism is used to express new and original ideas. The lurianic system as a whole can be seen as a single metaphor for a new relation between man and the deity which is not yet fully realized. The cabalistic myths of his sources express the reality of the relations of being in the lurianic corpus. The lurianic system seeks to reformulate the relation of man and god, concentrating on the way that the being of the deity is revealed in man. The main protagonist of the lurianic myth is the deity itself, beginning with the initial contraction and culminating in the god-man that evolves in the course of the restoration of the flawed creation. The revelation of the deity is expressed in terms of the human processes of life and death and the relation of man and god is largely relocated in the realm of human sexuality. The lurianic view implies a mutual dependence between man and god, since man is seen as the revealed aspect of the deity and the deity as the transcendent aspect of man. This unity is also problematic and the unbridgeable gap between man and god is explored in the doctrine of the female waters, in which his absorption into the transcendence of the deity entails the destruction of man.
**********
For more titles in Judaism see www.gorgiaspress.com under �Judaica�
**********
Proposals for Inclusion in the Series and Submissions
Proposals of works to be included in the Judaism in Context Series, the Gorgias Dissertations Series, as well as general manuscript proposals and proposals for reprints in the Jewish Studies Classics series can be sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
**********
Order Information:
Online orders: www.gorgiaspress.com
Fax orders: +1 732 699 0342
Phone Orders: +1 732 699 0343
Address: Gorgias Press, 46 Orris Ave, Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA. Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author
and are not necessarily endorsed by the AJL
===========================================================
Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: Hasafran @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu
Ha-Safran Archives:
http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html
AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
