The study of ancient Judaism has enjoyed a steep rise in interest and publications in recent decades, although the focus has often been on the ideas and beliefs represented in ancient Jewish texts rather than on the daily lives and the material culture of Jews/Judaeans and their communities. The nascent institution of the synagogue formed an increasingly important venue for communal gathering and daily or weekly practice. This collection of essays brings together a broad spectrum of new archaeological and textual data with various emergent theories and interpretative methods in order to address the need to understand the place of the synagogue in the daily and weekly procedures, community frameworks, and theological structures in which Judaeans, Galileans, and Jewish people in the Diaspora lived and gathered. The interdisciplinary studies will be of great significance for anyone studying ancient Jewish belief, practice, and community formation.

This book examines the development of institutionalized prayer in ancient Israel at a crucial time in the history of Western civilization: from the period of the Qumran writings, in the last three centuries BCE, through to the rabbinic period, after 70 CE. It explores the shift from sacrificial worship by priests to abstract, unmediated, direct approaches to the deity by laypeople. It demonstrates the transition from voluntary, freely composed prayers to obligatory prayers with fixed texts. The study shows how Qumran and Samaritan prayer contrast with rabbinic prayer, shedding light on Jewish customs before the rabbinic reform.Posthumously edited by Bernard M. Levinson.

This study traces the emergence of the concept of the body as a sanctuary from its biblical roots to its expressions in late Second Temple Judaism. Harringtons hypothesis is that the destruction of the first Jerusalem temple was a catalyst for a new reality vis-a-vis the temple and the emergence of increased emphasis on the holiness of the people along with concomitant standards of purity in a certain stream of Judaism. The study brings into relief elements of this attitude from exilic texts, e.g. Ezekiel, to Ezra-Nehemiah, the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple Jewish texts, including early Jesus and Pauline traditions. The goal is to provide a history of the concept of the body-cum-temple metaphor which comes to its fullest expression in the letters of Paul to the Corinthians.The concept of the body as a sanctuary as it comes to fruition in late second temple Judaism must be understood within the conceptual world of Jewish holiness of the time. The metaphor of the temple provides a frame of reference but only a close analysis of the concepts of holiness, purity, and impurity and the dynamics between them can provide depth and distinction. Of particular importance, critical to proper understanding of the temple metaphor, are the notions of the elect, holy status of Israel and its possible desecration by wrongful sexual relations, the loss of the temple and the ripple effect of creating at least temporary substitutes for processes of the cult, the widespread concern in Second Temple Judaism for ritual purity in support of greater holiness, and a desire among Jews for the residence and agency of the spirit of holiness.

Novick studies the relationship between rabbinic midrash and classical (and to a lesser extent pre-classical) piyyut?. The first focuses on features of piyyut? that distinguish it, at least prima facie, from rabbinic midrash: its performative character, its formal constraints, and its character as prayer. The second part considers midrash and piyyut? together via an analysis of a narrative form that looms large in both corpora. The "serial narrative" is a narrative that binds biblical history together by stringing together instance of the "same" event across multiple time periods. Thereby, Novick surveys basic features of serial narratives in midrash and piyyut?. Subsequent chapters take up instance of specific serial narrative forms from Second Temple literature to piyyut: the kingdom series, the salvation history, and the serial confession. Together, the two parts yield a nuanced account of the continuities and discontinuities between the two great corpora produced by rabbinic and para-rabbinic circles in Roman Palestine.

Hanna Tervanotko first analyzes the treatment and development of Miriam as a literary character in ancient Jewish texts, taking into account all the references to this figure preserved in ancient Jewish literature from the exilic period to the early second century C.E.: Exodus 15:20-21; Deuteronomy 24:8-9; Numbers 12:1-15; 20:1; 26:59; 1 Chronicles 5:29; Micah 6:4, the Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q365 6 II, 1-7; 4Q377 2 I, 9; 4Q543 1 I, 6 = 4Q545 1 I, 5; 4Q546 12, 4; 4Q547 4 I, 10; 4Q549 2, 8), Jubilees 47:4; Ezekiel the Tragedian 18; Demetrius Chronographer frag. 3; texts by Philo of Alexandria: De vita contemplativa 87; Legum allegoriae 1.76; 2.66-67; 3.103; De agricultura 80-81; Liber antiquitatum biblicarum 9:10; 20:8, and finally texts by Josephus: Antiquitates judaicae 2.221; 3.54; 3.105; 4.78. These texts demonstrate that the picture of Miriam preserved in the ancient Jewish texts is richer than the Hebrew Bible suggests. The results provide a contradictory image of Miriam. On the one hand she becomes a tool of Levitical politics, whereas on the other she continues to enjoy a freer role. People continued to interpret earlier literary traditions in light of new situations, and interpretations varied in different contexts. Second, in light of poststructuralist literary studies that treat texts as reflections of specific social situations, Tervanotko argues that the treatment of Miriam in ancient Jewish literature reflects mostly a reality in which women had little space as active agents. Despite the general tendency to allow women only little room, the references to Miriam suggest that at least some prominent women may have enjoyed occasional freedom.

After Ernst Jennis three well known basic volumes dealing with the Hebrew prepositions Beth, Kaph and Lamed a further study of the third most common preposition in Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic was a scholarly desideratum.This study of the preposition Min is presented here. The aim is to advance linguistic research on the Old Testament and to help to clarify a number of linguistic and semantic doubts and translation problems. Some new paths are being taken: The polysemous network that forms Min is systematically presented, the system of Hebrew prepositions is expanded to include an overall theory and the question of the logical subject in passive sentences is answered in a new way.This means that around 80% of all references to prepositions in the Old Testament have now been recorded and analysed.

Many scholars have focused on contemporary sources pertaining to the Nazi persecution and mass murder of Jews between 1933 and 1945--citing dated documents, newspapers, diaries, and letters--but the sermons delivered by rabbis describing and protesting against the ever-growing oppression of European Jews have been largely neglected. Agony in the Pulpit is a response to this neglect, and to the accusations made by respected figures that Jewish leaders remained silent in the wake of catastrophe. The passages from sermons reproduced in this volume--delivered by 135 rabbis in fifteen countries, mainly from the United States and England--provide important evidence of how these rabbis communicated the ever-worsening news to their congregants, especially on important religious occasions when they had peak attendance and peak receptivity. A central theme is how the preachers related the contemporary horrors to ancient examples of persecution. Did they present what was occurring under Hitler as a reenactment of the murderous oppressions by Pharaoh, Amalek, Haman, Ahasuerus, the Crusaders, the Spanish Inquisition, the Russian Pogroms? When did they begin to recognize and articulate from their pulpits an awareness that current events were fundamentally unprecedented? Was the developing cataclysm consistent with traditional beliefs about Gods control of what happened on earth? No other book-length study has presented such abundant evidence of rabbis in all streams of Jewish religious life seeking to rouse and inspire their congregants to full awareness of the catastrophic realities that were taking shape in the world beyond their synagogues.

This collection of eight essays deals with a wide range of historical, literary, and methodological issues. First, what were the links between the cultic and the prophetic personnel? Did prophets have ritual/cultic functions in temples? Did prophetic actions and/or utterances play a role in the performance of the cult? What were the ritual aspects of divinations? Second, how do literary texts describe the interaction between prophecy and cult? Third, how can various theories (e.g. religious theory, performance theory) enable us to reach a better understanding of the interplay between divination and cultic ritual in ancient Israel and the wider ancient Near East?Marian Broida explores the ritual elements as described in the biblical accounts of intercession. Lester Grabbe revisits the important question of whether cultic prophecy existed in the Jerusalem temple in ancient Israel. Anja Klein maintains that while Psalms 81 and 95 may indirectly testify to a form of cultic prophecy, they do not themselves constitute cultic prophecy. Jonathan Stokl discusses the notion of "triggering" prophecy and suggests that enquiring of Yhwh may in itself be understood as a kind of ritualised behaviour. John Hilber considers the performance of the rituals that accompanied prophetic affirmation of victory in the Egyptian cult. Martti Nissinen looks more broadly at the question whether prophets in the ancient world functioned as ritual performers. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer investigates the priests mediating and predictive functions as depicted in the Deuteronomistic History. Alex Jassen argues that Jews in the Second Temple Period perceived the priests and the temple to be a new locus of prophetic activity.

The volume offers an overview of the diverse Jewish experiences in Southeastern Europe from the 19th to the 21st centuries, and the various forms and strategies of their representation in literature, the arts, historiography and philosophy.Southeastern Europe is characterized by a high degree of ethnical, religious and cultural diversity. Jews, whether Sephardim, Ashkenazim or Romaniots settling there in different periods experienced divergent life worlds which engendered rich cultural production. Though recent scholarly and popular interest in this heterogeneous region has grown impressively, Jewish cultural production is still an under-researched area.The volume offers an overview of the diverse Jewish experiences in Southeastern Europe from the 19th to the 21st centuries, and the various forms and strategies of their representation in literature, the arts, historiography and philosophy, thus creating a dialogue between Jewish studies, Balkan studies, and current literary and cultural theories.

Piyyut is the art of Hebrew or Aramaic poetry composed either in place of or as adornments to Jewish statutory prayers. Laura S. Lieber uses the piyyutim of a single poet, Yannai (ca. sixth century C.E.), to introduce readers to this important but largely unfamiliar body of writings. Yannai, the first Hebrew poet to sign his name to his works (by means of an acrostic), influenced Hebrew sacred poetry for centuries beyond his lifespan. He was the first to consistently use true end rhyme, and he was among the first to have written for the weekly service and festivals rather than just particular holidays. As literary works, his poems are as dazzling as they are complex, rich with sound and play, allusion and linguistic beauty. Lieber presents the Hebrew texts of Yannais 31 extant piyyutim which embellish the Book of Genesis. She translates, annotates, and analyzes these complex poems, which display the poets transformative treatments of some of the most familiar biblical narratives. She contextualizes these poems and teaches readers how to read and appreciate piyyut by studying Yannais poetic language and the formal structures of the poems; his exegetical, cultural, and societal importance; and intriguing motifs in Yannais worldview such as mysticism, holiness, Jewish-Christian relations, and the role of women. Liebers groundbreaking study is an invitation to those with interests in areas such as liturgical studies, rabbinic literature and targum studies, the early synagogue and its art, Byzantine Christian culture and society, and the history of biblical interpretation to engage with these beautiful and neglected texts and include them in larger intellectual conversations.

David Ellenson prefaces this fascinating collection of twenty-three essays with a remarkably candid account of his intellectual journey from boyhood in Virginia to the scholarly immersions in the history, thought, and literature of the Jewish people that have informed his research interests in a long and distinguished academic career. Ellenson, President of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, has been particularly intrigued by the attempts of religious leaders in all denominations of Judaism, from Liberal to Neo-Orthodox, to redefine and reconceptualize themselves and their traditions in the modern period as both the Jewish community and individual Jews entered radically new realms of possibility and change. The essays are grouped into five sections. In the first, Ellenson reflects upon the expression of Jewish values and Jewish identity in contemporary America, explains his debt to Jacob Katzs socio-religious approach to Jewish history, and shows how the works of non-Jewish social historian Max Weber highlight the tensions between the universalism of western thought and Jewish demands for a particularistic identity. In the second section, "The Challenge of Emanicpation," he indicates how Jewish religious leaders in nineteenth-century Europe labored to demonstrate that the Jewish religion and Jewish culture were worthy of respect by the larger gentile world. In a third section, "Denominational Responses," Ellenson shows how the leaders of Liberal and Orthodox branches of Judaism in Central Europe constructed novel parameters for their communities through prayer books, legal writings, sermons, and journal articles. The fourth section, "Modern Responsa," takes a close look at twentieth-century Jewish legal decisions on new issues such as the status of woemn, fertility treatments, and even the obligations of the Israeli government towards its minority populations. Finally, review essays in the last section analyze a few landmark contemporary works of legal and liturgical creativity: the new Israeli Masorti prayer book, David Hartmans works on covenantal theology, and Marcia Falks Book of Blessings. As Ellenson demonstrates, "The reality of Jewish cultural and social integration into the larger world after Emancipation did not signal the demise of Judaism. Instead, the modern setting has provided a challenging context where the ongoing creativity and adaptability of Jewish religious leaders of all stripes has been tested and displayed."

For the right understanding of the Sayings Source Q not only the relation to early Judaism but also the social "landscape" in which the texts evolved is undeniably crucial. Here results of Galilean Archeology are brought into contact with sociological models how Jesus and the Q-community might have interacted with their contemporaries (cf. the thesis of social disruption by G. Theien, attitudes in early Judaism towards the Temple by B. Ego, the role of women in early Judaism by T. Ilan, the situation in the Diaspora by P. Trebilco). The question is also extended to the social profile of the authorities behind the Sayings Source Q: Were they itinerant prophets or village scribes?

The Journal of the Hebrew Union College, an anthology of scholarly articles concerning Jewish history, religion and culture from antiquity to the present.

Minhag (custom) played a far greater and far more important role in medieval Ashkenazic society than in any other Jewish community. In upholding the authority of a custom, halakhic authorities frequently asserted that "custom prevails over halakhah." Furthermore, Ashkenazic authorities asserted that Ashkenazic custom is more authentic than the customs of other Jewish communities, including those of Sepharad (Spain). Given the importance attributed to minhag and the influence of the siddur commentaries of the circle of Hassidei Ashkenaz, which emphasize the precise formulation of liturgical texts, one might assume that Ashkenazic Jewry was committed to preserving ancestral custom and opposed to liturgical change. However, the reality is that the liturgy of Ashkenaz was never static. From a very early time, new liturgies and liturgical practices were incorporated into the service, the inclusion of various prayers was challenged, and variant readings of prayers became standard. Tradition, Interpretation, and Change focuses on developments in the Ashkenazic rite, the liturgical rite of most of central and eastern European Jewry, from the eleventh century through the seventeenth. Kenneth Berger argues that how a prayer or practice was understood, or the rationale for its recitation or performance, often had a profound effect on whether and when it was to be recited, as well as on the specific wording of the prayer. In some cases, the formulation of new interpretations served a conservative function, as when rabbinic authorities sought to find new, alternative explanations which would justify the continued performance of practices whose original rationale no longer applied. In other cases, new understandings of a liturgical practice led to changes in that practice, and even to the development of new liturgies expressive of those interpretations. In Tradition, Interpretation, and Change, Berger draws upon a wide body of primary sources, including classical rabbinic and geonic works, liturgical documents found in the Cairo genizah, medieval codes, responsa, and siddur commentaries, minhag books, medieval siddur manuscripts, and early printed siddurim, as well as a wealth of secondary sources, to provide the reader with an in-depth account of the history and history of interpretation of many familiar and not-so-familiar prayers and liturgical practices. While emphasizing the role that the interpretation ascribed to various prayers and practices had in shaping the liturgy of medieval and early modern Ashkenaz, Berger illustrates the degree to which Sephardic and kabbalistic influences, concern for the fate of the dead, the fear of demons, and the desire for healing and divine protection from a variety of dangers shaped both liturgical practice and the way in which those practices were understood.

The Spanish and Portuguese Jews of seventeenth-century Amsterdam cultivated a remarkable culture centered on the Bible. School children studied the Bible systematically, while rabbinic literature was pushed to levels reached by few students; adults met in confraternities to study Scripture; and families listened to Scripture-based sermons in synagogue, and to help pass the long, cold winter nights of northwest Europe. The communitys rabbis produced creative, and often unprecedented scholarship on the Jewish Bible as well as the New Testament. Amsterdams People of the Book shows that this unique, Bible-centered culture resulted from the confluence of the Jewish communitys Catholic and converso past with the Protestant world in which they came to live. Studying Amsterdams Jews offers an early window into the prioritization of the Bible over rabbinic literature -- a trend that continues through modernity in western Europe. It allows us to see how Amsterdams rabbis experimented with new historical methods for understanding the Bible, and how they grappled with doubts about the authority and truth of the Bible that were growing in the world around them. Amsterdams People of the Book allows us to appreciate how Benedict Spinozas ideas were in fact shaped by the approaches to reading the Bible in the community where he was born, raised, and educated. After all, as Spinoza himself remarked, before becoming Amsterdams most famous heretic and one of Europes leading philosophers and biblical critics, he was "steeped in the common beliefs about the Bible from childhood on."

Biblical Psalms are a common heritage of Jewish and Christian cultures. Serving for the common liturgy of the Jerusalem Temple and individual prayers since biblical times they inspired Hebrew poetical language. The Qumran community, as well as Jewish and Christian communities of Late Antiquity attributed to them a special authority and apotropaic function. Quoted and interpreted in various ways in the New Testament and Rabbinic tradition they had a fundamental role in regular liturgies since the Middle Ages. Referred to in medical texts, recited on pilgrimages and at funeral vigils they represented an important aspect of folk religion and the formation of religious identity. The present volume is intended to show the many ways the Psalms were used and enjoyed a lasting popularity in regular and folk religion, collectively and individually, from antiquity until today.

The translation of the Bible into the vernacular is a venerable Jewish tradition, more than two thousand years old. Ashkenazi Jewish culture was a latecomer to the vernacular Bible, and it was only in the sixteenth century that the Yiddish Bible made its appearance in print. Almost one hundred years ago, Wilhelm Staerk and Albert Leitzmanns survey of Early Modern Yiddish Bible translations was the first attempt to define this genre of Early Modern Yiddish literature. In the intervening century there has been relatively little scholarly interest in these texts. The purpose of the present study is to survey the present state of research in this field and place these works in the context of the popular religious culture of Ashkenazi Jewry, which is defined by its use of Yiddish as a means of both oral communication and literary production. The subject of this study is every Yiddish work from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that is directly or indirectly related to the Bible. The survey begins with the Mirkevet ha-Mishneh, the first published Yiddish book, which is a biblical concordance, published in Cracow, 1534-36, and concludes with the two competing translations of the entire Bible into Yiddish by Yekutiel Blitz and Joseph Witzenhausen, published in Amsterdam, 1676-86. (These were translations without any accompanying commentaries, and were modeled on Protestant Bibles, like the English King James, or the German Luther Bible.) The study includes not only translations of biblical books, but also adaptations, reworkings, and paraphrases of biblical texts, appearing in diverse literary styles, by a wide variety of authors. King David, for example, is presented in the Shmuel Bukh as a combination of medieval chivalric hero and rabbinic scholar who is careful to observe the strictures of Halakhah. The story of Jonah is retold through a midrashic lens, and concludes with a kabbalistic parable that analogizes Jonahs journey to that of the soul from conception through life, death, and return to its heavenly source. Some authors take great liberties with the biblical text. The author of the paraphrase of Isaiah only includes what he considers to be prophetic utterances and disregards the rest of the book. Another author decides that the second half of the Torah is too legalistic and not worth retelling, so he ends his commentary after the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. As for the Five Scrolls, Lamentations is too depressing so he ignores it. There are also surprising inclusions in these volumes, such as the books of Judith and Susanna from the Apocrypha, and the very colorful medieval version of the Book of Ben Sira, which is considered by modern scholars to be a parody.

The growth of the rabbinic canon may be best described as a hermeneutical endeavor. Michael Chernick demonstrates how hermeneutical methods helped the Rabbis confront the difficulties that arose when logical and interpretative problems appeared in scriptural and, later, rabbinic texts. Given the Rabbis theological, literary, and rhetorical attitudes, these reading strategies were adopted to obviate the problem the texts presented. After all, the Rabbis of different generations viewed these texts as revealed communications produced by a perfect Author. Chernick analyzes and illustrates six midrashic hermeneutics in great detail: outright midrashic resolutions of contradictions in Scripture, distinguishing between what constitutes true scriptural proof and what is merely a support text, a midrashic hermeneutic that transfers the rules of one rubric to another, two hermeneutics that limit interpretive extensions of halakhot, and the claim that two redundant pentateuchal rubrics are needed to ward off incorrect analogies. He highlights the significant changes that occurred in rabbinic legal hermeneutics from the tannaitic through post-amoraic strata of rabbinic literature-some 500 years at least-and shows how these changes attest to the persistence, continuity, and centrality of hermenutic method to the rabbinic interpretive process. Of particular significance is the connection Chernick makes between changes in hermeneutical practice and the changing revelatory status of the non-Pentateuchal parts of the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic legal discourse. His study draws its title from the traditional view of Sinaitic revelation, when God spoke to the assembled people with "a great voice that did not cease" (kol gadol velo yasaf, Deut 5:19). This view, Chernick believes, is at the core of rabbinic Judaism, the Judaism that claims to hear that great voice through the medium of interpretation.

The work of a coterie of dynamic women - not the brainchild of Reform Judaisms male leaders, as is often thought - Women of Reform Judaism has been a force in the shaping of American Jewish life since its founding as the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods in 1913. The synergy of Reform Judaisms universalist ideas and the womens emancipation movement in the early twentieth century made the synagogue auxiliary a natural platform for women to assume new leadership roles in their synagogues, in Reform Judaism, and in American society. These "sisterhoods" have stood for the solidarity among synagogue women as well as the commitment of these women to important social action issues. Called Women of Reform Judaism since 1993, this oldest federation of womens synagogue auxiliaries has grown from 52 temple sisterhoods to 500 and a membership of over 65,000 women, today a vibrant international womens organization. Women of Reform Judaism, in cooperation with The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives and Hebrew Union College Press, marks its centennial anniversary with this collection of new scholarly essays which looks back at its history in order to understand how the hopes and dreams of its founders have come to fruition. Armed with the rich archival resources of the American Jewish Archives, including Proceedings of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, 1913-1955, eighteen scholars contributed essays on the spectrum of Women of Reform Judaisms activities, including their funding of Hebrew Union College during the Great Depression, their support for Jewish education through production of a substantial womens Torah commentary designed to edify lay people as well as scholars and clergy, their promotion of Jewish foodways and art through publication of cookbooks and support of synagogue gift shops, their invention of the Uniongram as a formidable fundraising tool on a par with the Girl Scout cookie, and their efforts to safeguard Jewish continuity through support of youth activities (NFTY).