Synopses & Reviews
In 1789, when George Washington was elected the first president of the United States, laymen from all six Jewish congregations in the new nation sent him congratulatory letters. He replied to all six. Thus, after more than a century of Jewish life in colonial America the small communities of Jews present at the birth of the nation proudly announced their religious institutions to the country and were recognized by its new leader. By this time, the synagogue had become the most significant institution of American Jewish life, a dominance that was not challenged until the twentieth century, when other institutions such as Jewish community centers or Jewish philanthropic organizations claimed to be the hearts of their Jewish communities.
Concise yet comprehensive, The Synagogue in America is the first history of this all-important structure, illuminating its changing role within the American Jewish community over the course of three centuries. From Atlanta and Des Moines to Los Angeles and New Orleans, Marc Lee Raphael moves beyond the New York metropolitan area to examine Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstuctionist synagogue life everywhere. Using the records of approximately 125 Jewish congregations, he traces the emergence of the synagogue in the United States from its first instances in the colonial period, when each of the half dozen initial Jewish communities had just one synagogue each, to its proliferation as the nation and the American Jewish community grew and diversified.
Encompassing architecture, forms of worship, rabbinic life, fundraising, creative liturgies, and feminism, The Synagogue in America is the go-to history for understanding the synagogues significance in American Jewish life.
Review
“A virtuoso in several genres of American Jewish history, but a specialist in the evolution of American Judaism, Marc Lee Raphael has produced the culminating work of his career. This synoptic account of the institution of the American synagogue—and in effect of the rabbinate as well—is punctuated with wonderful insights and assured generalizations. The author wears his learning lightly. A fascinating scholarly overview, The Synagogue in America also happens to be a pleasure to read.”
“Thanks to years of relentless toiling through synagogue archives coast to coast, and by virtue of his close examination of prayer books and rabbis' sermons, Marc Lee Raphael has provided readers with intriguing vistas and insights into the contours of Jewish religious life from the founding of the earliest communities in America to the present day. Written in clear prose by a master teacher, this volume will be welcomed both within university classrooms and in congregational study groups.”
“No one knows more about the American synagogue than Marc Lee Raphael, whose compact yet comprehensive study reveals the astonishing diversity of Jewish congregational life over the last three centuries. Leaving dry institutional history in the dust, Raphael vividly conveys how the synagogue reflected the concerns, needs, and tastes of American Jews, as well as the contradictions that so often characterized their religious identities..”
“A useful and concise scholarly treatise, which neatly interweaves the facts of the evolution of the American synagogue.” "Raphael, a Reform rabbi and professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary, has written a concise, detailed history of the synagogue as a religious institution in the U.S."
Review
"In a timely, scholarly work, Branimir Anzulovic brings the two theories together in Heavenly Serbia. He shows how history, religion, myth, and folklore intertwined to lay the groundwork; and how Slobodan Milosevic, a former Communist Party technocrat turned highly skilled manipulator, invoked the past to incite Serbs to create a larger and ethnically pure 'Greater Serbia.'...All in all, though, the book goes a long way in helping the reader understand the 'hows' and 'whys' of what is happening in the Balkans today."-Faye Bowers,Christian Science Monitor
Review
"The book's strength consists of illustrating a national ideology woven from myth and historical episode."-Library Journal ,3/15/99
Review
"The book's grasp of Serbian culture extends far beyond the superficial 'ancient hatreds' thesis of Balkan war."-Zachary T. Irwin,Pennsylvania State University, Erie
Review
"Recommended reading."-USA Today,
Review
"Modern Serbian nationalism...and its contradictory connections...have been sources of considerable scholarly interest...Branimir Anzulovic's compendium is a good example of the genre, made all the more useful by Anzulovic's excellent command of the literature."-Ivo Banac,History of Religions
Synopsis
As violence and turmoil continue to define the former Yugoslavia, basic questions remain unanswered: What are the forces behind the Serbian expansionist drive that has brought death and destruction to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo? How did the Serbs rationalize, and rally support for, this genocidal activity?
Heavenly Serbia traces Serbia's nationalist and expansionist impulses to the legendary battle of Kosovo in 1389. Anzulovic shows how the myth of "Heavenly Serbia" developed to help the Serbs endure foreign domination, explaining their military defeat and the loss of their medieval state by emphasizing their own moral superiority over military victory. Heavenly Serbia shows how this myth resulted in an aggressive nationalist ideology which has triumphed in the late twentieth century and marginalized those Serbs who strive for the establishment of a civil society.
"Modern Serbian nationalism...and its contradictory connections...have been sources of considerable scholarly interest...Branimir Anzulovic's compendium is a good example of the genre, made all the more useful by Anzulovic's excellent command of the literature."
Ivo Banac, History of Religions
Author interview with CNN: http://www.cnn.com/chat/transcripts/branimir_chat.html
About the Author
Branimir Anzulovic was born in Zagreb Croatia. He has a degree in philosophy from the University of Zagreb, and a doctorate in comparative literature from Indiana University. He has taught at Prescott College and Indiana University, and worked in the Yugoslav service of the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. He is now an independent researcher residing in Vienna, Virginia. Among his publications are theater and film reviews, and essays in cultural history and literary criticism.