Synopses & Reviews
The set of Jewish mystical teachings known as Kabbalah are often imagined as timeless texts, teachings that have been passed down through the millennia. Yet, as this groundbreaking new study shows, Kabbalah flourished in a specific time and place, emerging in response to the social prejudices that Jews faced.
Hartley Lachter, a scholar of religion studies, transports us to medieval Spain, a place where anti-Semitic propaganda was on the rise and Jewish political power was on the wane. Kabbalistic Revolution proposes that, given this context, Kabbalah must be understood as a radically empowering political discourse. and#160;While the eraandrsquo;s Christian preachers claimed that Jews were blind to the true meaning of scripture and had been abandoned by God, the Kabbalists countered with a doctrine that granted Jews a uniquely privileged relationship with God. Lachter demonstrates how Kabbalah envisioned this increasingly marginalized group at the center of the universe, their mystical practices serving to maintain the harmony of the divine world.and#160;
For students of Jewish mysticism, Kabbalistic Revolution provides a new approach to the development of medieval Kabbalah. Yet the bookandrsquo;s central questions should appeal to anyone with an interest in the relationships between religious discourses, political struggles, and ethnic pride.and#160;
Review
andquot;Written with grace and thoroughly researched, One People, One Blood is an ethnography with a lot of heart that also sheds new light on a fascinating and fraught chapter in recent Jewish history.andquot;
Review
andquot;Seeman has an eye for multifaceted complexity, and a gift for sensitive exploration of the many tough issues that the existence of the 'Feres Mura' has raised. The book also offers great insight into the concerns and thought processes of morally serious ethnographers.andquot;
Review
andquot;Seeman has done an outstanding job.andquot;
Review
andquot;Schreier is a beautiful storyteller, writes in crystalline prose, and presents original and carefully researched historical arguments. He paints a brilliant picture of Algerian Jewries that is far more nuanced than that provided by other sources. His book offers scholars of Algerian/North African/Middle East histories who do not work on Jews a way to understand, situate, and engage this subject.andquot;
Review
andquot;In this remarkable book, Schreier argues convincingly that Algerian Jews helped to shape the civilizing mission in colonial Algeria. By means of a nuanced and sophisticated analysis Schreier brings the Jews out of the shadows of the wings and places them at the center of the colonial stage, thus adding greatly to our understanding of the dynamics of race and ethnicity as well as the civilizing ideologies of the early decades of French colonization in Algeria.andquot;
Review
andquot;By crossing the boundaries that have conventionally separated French, Algerian and Jewish history, Arabs of the Jewish Faith brilliantly illuminates the struggles and transformations of Algeria's Jewish minority but also the ways in which France's 'civilizing mission' impacted both the colonies and the metropole.andquot;
Review
andquot;Aand#160;well-researched book.andquot;
Review
andquot;This book is an exceptionally fresh and significant contribution. It is an important corrective to the tendency to sublimate social history to the history of ideas.andquot;
Review
andquot;Lachter's work is a compelling and important study of the manner in which Kabbalah responded to political and cultural pressures in Castile at a time of striking proliferation of kabbalistic literature.andquot;
Review
andquot;A worthwhile and edifying contribution to contemporary scholarship on medieval Jewish mysticism.andquot;
Synopsis
Distilling more than ten years of ethnographic research, Don Seeman depicts the rich culture of the group, as well as their social and cultural vulnerability, and addresses the problems that arise when immigration officials, religious leaders, or academic scholars try to determine the legitimacy of Jewish identity or Jewish religious experience.
Synopsis
"Little by little, an egg will come to walk upon its own leg." Ethiopian-Israelis fondly quote this bit of Amharic folk wisdom, reflecting upon the slow, difficult history that allowed them to fulfill their destiny far from the Horn of Africa where they were born.
But today, along with those Ethiopians who have been recognized as Jews by the State of Israel, many who are called "Feres Mura," the descendants of Ethiopian Jews whose families converted to Christianity but have now reasserted their Jewish identity, still await full acceptance in Israel. Since the 1990s, they have sought homecoming through Israel's "Law of Return," but have been met with reticence and suspicion on a variety of fronts. One People, One Blood expertly documents this tenuous relationship and the challenges facing the Feres Mura.
Distilling more than ten years of ethnographic research, Don Seeman depicts the rich culture of the group, as well as their social and cultural vulnerability, and addresses the problems that arise when immigration officials, religious leaders, or academic scholars try to determine the legitimacy of Jewish identity or Jewish religious experience.
Synopsis
Exploring how Algerian Jews responded to and appropriated France's newly conceived andquot;civilizing missionandquot; in the mid-nineteenth century, Arabs of the Jewish Faith shows that the ideology, while rooted in French Revolutionary ideals of regeneration, enlightenment, and emancipation, actually developed as a strategic response to the challenges of controlling the unruly and highly diverse populations of Algeria's coastal cities.
and#160;
Synopsis
The set of Jewish mystical teachings known as Kabbalah are often imagined as timeless texts. Yet, as this fresh approach shows, Kabbalah flourished in a specific time and place, one where anti-Semitic propaganda was on the rise. Hartley Lachter, a scholar of religion studies, transports us to medieval Spain and demonstrates how Kabbalah served as a radical rebuke to the eraandrsquo;s prejudices, placing the increasingly marginalized Jews at the center of the divine universe.and#160;
About the Author
HARTLEY LACHTER is the Phillip and Muriel Berman Professor of Jewish Studies and director of the Berman Center for Jewish Studies at Lehigh University.and#160;
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Kabbalistic Writing in Late Thirteenth-Century Castile
1 Masters of Secrets: Claiming Power with Concealed Knowledge
2 Secrets of the Cosmos: Creating a Kabbalistic Universe
3 Secrets of the Self: Kabbalistic Anthropology and Divine Mystery
4 Jewish Bodies and Divine Power: Theurgy and Jewish Law
5 Prayer Above and Below: Kabbalistic Constructions of the Power of Jewish Worship
Conclusion
Postscriptandmdash;Cultural Logics: Kabbalah, Then and Now
Notes
Bilbiography
Index