The literature on modern Jewry, especially in America, is vast and varied. The following suggestions are not intended as an exhaustive bibliography, but they should allow the reader to explore the arguments further. The works selected are confined to those in English and are arranged by chapters.
1: A Family Portrait: Jews Today
The portraits in this chapter are fictitious and do not represent any particular ideology or institution. The following, though, may flesh out some of the portraits. An American equivalent of Ruth might be found in the “modern Orthodox” congregation studied in Samuel C. Heilman, Synagogue Life: A Study in Symbolic Interaction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), a brilliant sociological analysis. Heilman’s People of the Book: Drama, Fellowship and Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983) uses the same techniques to study traditional learning circles.
Richard’s complex relationship with Judaism and Jewishness is illuminated by Sander Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred: Anti-Semitism and the Hidden Language of the Jew (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).
On Pinchas, see Janet Aviad, Return to Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), a sociological study of baalei teshuvah. A personal account is to be found in Mayer Schiller, The Road Back (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1981). Another is given in Michael Graubart Levin, Journey to Tradition: The Odyssey of a Born-Again Jew (Hoboken: Ktav, 1986). For those contemplating the journey back to tradition, Adin Steinsaltz’s Teshuvah: A Guide for the Newly Observant Jew (New York: Free Press, 1987) is an invaluable introduction.
Little is available on Susan’s “nominal Orthodoxy.” Background reading on Anglo-Jewry is provided in V.D. Lipman, Social History of the Jews in England 1850–1950 (London: Watts, 1954); Aubrey Newman, The United Synagogue 1870–1970 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976); A Century of Anglo-Jewish Life, 1870–1970, edited by S.S. Levin (London: United Synagogue, undated); Todd M. Endleman, “The Englishness of Jewish Modernity in England,” in Toward Modernity: The European Jewish Model, edited by Jacob Katz (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1987), 225–246; and Eugene C. Black, The Social Politics of Anglo-Jewry 1880–1920 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988). Also of interest is the survey of attitudes among contemporary French Jews in Dominique Schnapper, Jewish Identities in France: An Analysis of Contemporary French Jewry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983).
Secular equivalents of Avi’s “negation of the diaspora” are to be found in A.B. Yehoshua, Between Right and Right (New York: Doubleday, 1981), and Hillel Halkin, Letters to an American Jewish Friend (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1977). Modern Jewish thought on the subjects of exile and redemption is elegantly surveyed in Arnold Eisen, Galut: Modern Jewish Reflection on Homelessness and Homecoming (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986). The best reader on Zionism is Arthur Hertzberg’s anthology, The Zionist Idea (New York: Atheneum, 1981).
2: A Religion or a Nation?
The best introduction to the themes of this chapter are three books by Jacob Katz: Tradition and Crisis (New York: Free Press, 1961); Out of the Ghetto (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973); and Jewish Emancipation and Self-Emancipation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1986). A superb anthology of sources is provided by The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History, edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980). See also Michael A. Meyer, The Origins of the Modem Jew (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1967), and David Rudavsky, Modem Jewish Religious Movements (New York: Behrman House, 1979).
Moses Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem is available in a new translation by Allan Arkush (Boston: Brandeis University Press, 1983). The best history of the Reform movement is Michael A. Meyer’s recent Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). A documentary history of early Reform is available in W. Gunther Plaut, The Rise of Reform Judaism: A Sourcebook of Its European Origins (New York: World Union for Progressive Judaism, 1963). Interesting material is also contained in Gil Graff, Separation of Church and State: Dina de-Malkhuta Dina in Jewish Law, 1750–1848 (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1985).
Moses Hess’s Rome and Jerusalem is available in translations by Meyer Waxman (New York: Bloch, 1943) and Maurice J. Bloom (New York: Philosophical Library, 1958). A recent study is Shlomo Avineri, Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism (New York: New York University Press, 1985). The transition between classical and modern conceptions of Zion is studied in a collection of essays, The Land of Israel: Jewish Perspectives, edited by Lawrence A. Hoffman (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986). The best brief introduction to the history of antisemitism is History and Hate, edited by David Berger (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1986).
3: Traditional Alternatives
Not enough has been written on the history of Orthodoxy in the last two hundred years. For accounts of the German experience, see Hermann Schwab, The History of Orthodox Jewry in Germany (London: Mitre Press, 1950), and Robert Liberie’s account of Hirsch’s Frankfurt, Religious Conflict in Social Context (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985). On Hirsch, see also Noah Rosenbloom, Tradition in an Age of Reform (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1976). On Hirsch’s influence, see I. Grunfeld, Three Generations (London: Jewish Post, 1958).
Hirsch’s own writings are best studied in The Nineteen Letters on Judaism, translated by Bernard Drachman (New York: Feldheim, 1960); Judaism Eternal, translated by I. Grunfeld (London: Soncino Press, 1959), and Horeb, translated by I. Grunfeld (London: Soncino Press, 1962). Hirsch’s Torah commentary is available in a five-volume translation by Isaac Levy (Gateshead: Judaica Press, 1982) and a one-volume anthology translated by Gertrude Hirschler (New York: Judaica Press, 1986).
An anthology of the writings of R. Kook is available in English: Abraham Isaac Kook, translated by Ben Zion Bokser (London: SPCK, 1979).
There are some excellent brief surveys of the subject under review. See, for example, the essays by Jacob Katz and Eliezer Goldman in Studies in Contemporary Jewry II, edited by Peter Medding (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986); Samuel Heilman’s outstanding essay, “The Many Faces of Orthodoxy,” in Modern Judaism 2:1 (February 1982) and 2:2 (May 1982); Charles Liebman’s “Religion and the Chaos of Modernity,” in Take Judaism, for Example, edited by Jacob Neusner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983, 147–164), and his “Orthodox Judaism” in The Encyclopaedia of Religion, edited by Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987); and Moshe Samet’s “The Beginnings of Orthodoxy,” Modern Judaism 8:3 (October 1988, 249–270). Aspects of modern Orthodoxy are explored in Zvi Kurzweil’s The Modern Impulse of Traditional Judaism (Hoboken: Ktav, 1985).
4: Contemporary Affirmations
Among the major sociological studies of contemporary Jewry that inform this and the next chapter, see Steven M. Cohen, American Modernity and Jewish Identity (London: Tavistock, 1983); American Assimilation or Jewish Revival? (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988); Calvin Goldscheider, Jewish Continuity and Change (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986); Calvin Goldscheider and Alan Zuckerman, The Transformation of the Jews (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984); Sidney Goldstein and Calvin Goldscheider, Jewish Americans: Three Generations in a Jewish Community (Maryland: University Press of America, 1985); Charles Liebman, The Ambivalent American Jew (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1973); Aspects of the Religious Behaviour of American Jews (New York: Ktav, 1984); Stephen Sharot, Judaism: A Sociology (London: David and Charles, 1976); Charles Silberman, A Certain People: American Jews and Their Lives Today (New York: Summit, 1985).
5: The State of Survival
On intermarriage, see Egon Mayer’s highly readable study, Love and Tradition: Marriage between Jews and Christians (New York: Schocken, 1987). Jewish birth rates in the modern period are analyzed in Modern Jewish Fertility, edited by Paul Ritterband (Leiden: Brill, 1981). On the Jewish family generally, see Samuel Heilman, “The Jewish Family Today: An Overview,” in Tradition and Transition, edited by Jonathan Sacks (London: Jews’ College, 1986, 179–208).
One study of aliyah is Chaim Waxman, “American Aliyah: Dream and Reality,” in Morasha 2:3 (Winter–Spring 1987, 1–8). Moshe Shokeid’s study of yordim is entitled Children of Circumstances: Israeli Emigrants in New York (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988). Important studies of the same phenomenon are contained in Contemporary Jewry, volume 7, edited by Arnold Dashevsky (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1986).
6: What Is a Jew?
Jean-Paul Sartre’s study of antisemitism and the nature of Jewishness is Anti-Semite and Jew (New York: Schocken, 1965). Emil Fackenheim’s recent thought is best encountered in his The Jewish Return into History (New York: Schocken, 1978) and To Mend the World (New York: Schocken, 1983). An anthology of his writings is presented in The Jewish Thought of Emil Fackenheim: A Reader, edited by Michael Morgan (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987).
On the Holocaust and modern Jewish identities, see Amos Oz, In the Land of Israel (London: Flamingo, 1983), Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiyah, Civil Religion in Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), and Jacob Neusner’s three volumes of essays, Stranger at Home (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), The Jewish War against the Jews (New York: Ktav, 1984), and Israel in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985).
On Jewishness and Judaism, see Nathan Glazer, American Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), and Will Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew (New York: Anchor, 1960). A critique of “transformationist” Jewish sociology is contained in Charles Liebman’s “The Debate on American Jewish Life,” in Studies in Contemporary Jewry IV, edited by Jonathan Frankel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, 175–184).
Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik’s essay, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” appeared in Tradition 7:2 (Summer 1965, 5–67). Reuven Bulka’s analysis of the possible future Orthodox-Reform schism is contained in his The Coming Cataclysm (Oakville: Mosaic Press, 1984). Irving Greenberg’s essay on the same themes is Will There Be One Jewish People by the Year 2000? (New York: National Jewish Resource Center, 1985). Lawrence Schiffman’s study of the issue in the context of the Jewish-Christian schism is to be found in his Who Was a Jew? (Hoboken: Ktav, 1985).
7: The Reemergence of Orthodoxy
The best collection of materials on the subject of this chapter is Dimensions of Orthodox Judaism, edited by Reuven Bulka (New York: Ktav, 1983). An interesting if unscholarly collection of materials on the collapse of Orthodoxy prior to the Second World War is contained in Bernard Maza, With Fury Poured Out (Hoboken: Ktav, 1986). Oscar Fasman’s reminiscences are taken from his “After Fifty Years, an Optimist,” American Jewish History 59:2 (December 1979). The whole issue is devoted to a study of Orthodox Judaism in America.
Charles Liebman’s landmark essay on “Orthodoxy in American Jewish Life” is reprinted in Bulka’s anthology, 33–105. The rise of yeshivot in America is studied in William Helmreich, The World of the Yeshiva (New York: Free Press, 1982). Daniel Elazar’s remarks on the demography of Orthodoxy are found in his “Who Is a Jew and How?” (Jerusalem Newsletter, 24 September, 1986). Orthodoxy in contemporary Israel is studied in Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiyah, Religion and Politics in Israel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). The Israeli soldiers’ reflections on the Six-Day War were published as The Seventh Day (London: Penguin, 1971). Amnon Rubinstein’s critique of the influence of the new religious nationalism is contained in his The Zionist Dream Revisited (New York: Schocken, 1984); Yehoshafat Harkabi adds remarks in a similar vein in his Israel’s Fateful Decisions (London: Tauris, 1988).
The urban sociology of Orthodoxy is studied in Menachem Friedman’s “Charedim Confront the Modern City,” Studies in Contemporary Jewry II (74–96). Peter Berger’s remarks on childhood and the family are scattered throughout his many writings, but in particular see Brigitte and Peter Berger, The War over the Family (London: Penguin, 1983). Bruno Bettelheim’s study of kibbutz families is The Children of the Dream (London: Paladin, 1971). On rethinking modernity, see Peter Berger, Facing up to Modernity (London: Penguin, 1979); Peter Berger, Brigitte Berger and Hansfried Kellner, The Homeless Mind (London: Penguin, 1974); and Robert Bellah and others, Habits of the Heart (London: Hutchinson, 1988).
8: Assimilationism and Assimilation
The quotation from Jacob Neusner comes from his Israel in America, 125. See the articles of Leonard Fein, Moshe Adler, David Singer, and Neusner under the heading “If Orthodoxy Is the Answer, What Is the Question?” Moment 9:3 (September 1978, 28–44). Eugene Borowitz’s restatement of Reform attitudes is set out in his “The Autonomous Jewish Self,” Modern Judaism 4:1 (February 1984, 39–56). Jonathan Woocher’s study of the “civil religion” of American Jews is in Sacred Survival (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986). Norman Mirsky’s remarks are taken from his “Nathan Glazer’s American Judaism After 30 Years: A Reform Opinion,” American Jewish History 77:2 (December 1987, 232–246). Michael Walzer’s analysis of group membership can be found in his Spheres of Justice (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983, 31–63).
9: The Radicalization of Orthodoxy
The key document here is the symposium devoted to “The State of Orthodoxy,” in Tradition 20:1 (Spring 1982). The remarks of Lord Jakobovits are taken from his New Priorities on the Orthodox Agenda (London: Office of the Chief Rabbi, 1989). R. Soloveitchik’s account of the relations between Jewish and secular thought can be found in his Halakhic Man, translated by Lawrence Kaplan (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1983), and The Halakhic Mind (New York: Free Press, 1986). An interesting collection of sources which includes an essay by R. Soloveitchik, “Kodesh and Chol,” as well as the address by Norman Lamm quoted in the text, has been published by Yeshiva University as the Torah U’Mada Reader (undated).
Charles Liebman’s remarks on compartmentalization are taken from his essay “Orthodox Judaism Today,” in Dimensions of Orthodox Judaism, 106–120. The debate about vacations was set out in David Singer’s “Is Club Med Kosher? Reflections on Synthesis and Compartmentalization,” and Shalom Carmy’s rejoinder, “Synthesis and the Unification of Human Existence,” Tradition 21:4 (Fall 1985, 27–51). Michael Walzer’s analysis of free time is contained in his Spheres of Justice, 184–196.
The debate about religious Zionism can be followed through the various issues of the journal Morasha. The religious anti-Zionist argument is set out in I. Domb, The Transformation (London: Hamadfis, 1958), and Emil Marmorstein, Heaven at Bay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). Messianic politics in contemporary Israel are studied in Menachem Kellner, “Messianic Postures in Israel Today,” Modern Judaism 6:2 (May 1986, 197–210); Ehud Luz, “The Moral Price of Sovereignty,” Modern Judaism 7:1 (February 1987, 51–98); Chaim Waxman, “Messianism, Zionism and the State of Israel,” Modern Judaism 7:2 (May 1987, 175–192); Shubert Spero, “Does Traditional Jewish Messianism Imply Inevitability?” Modern Judaism 8:3 (October 1988, 271–287); Uriel Tal, “Contemporary Hermeneutics and Self-Views on the Relationship between State and Land,” in The Land of Israel: Jewish Perspectives, 316–338.
10: Between Two Covenants
Irving Greenberg’s analysis of the state of the covenant is contained in three papers published by the National Jewish Resource Center in New York: On the Third Era in Jewish History (1980), The Third Great Cycle in Jewish History (1981), and Voluntary Covenant (1982). Versions of “Modern Orthodoxy” in the sense used in this chapter are set out in Emanuel Rackman, One Man’s Judaism (Tel Aviv: Greenfield, undated); Eliezer Berkovits, Crisis and Faith (New York: Sanhedrin Press, 1976); and Not in Heaven (New York: Ktav, 1983); David Hartman, A Living Covenant (New York: Free Press, 1985).
11: Tradition as Argument
Alasdair MacIntyre’s study of morality and tradition is contained in After Virtue (London: Duckworth, 1981). The quotation is from pp. 206–207. The argument is continued in his Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (London: Duckworth, 1988). Also on this subject see Edward Shils, Tradition (London: Faber and Faber, 1981), and Jaroslav Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984).
Two classic studies of the interplay, in Jewish tradition, between revelation and interpretation are Gershom Scholem, “Revelation and Tradition as Religious Categories in Judaism,” in his The Messianic Idea in Judaism (New York: Schocken, 1971, 282–303); and Simon Rawidowicz, “On Interpretation,” in his Studies in Jewish Thought (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1974, 45–80).
The Jewish Catalog was published in Philadelphia by the Jewish Publication Society of America in 1973. Eugene Borowitz’s remarks on it are contained in his Choices in Jewish Modern Thought (New York: Behrman House, 1983, 244). Attempts to state a Conservative position on halakhah are set out in Joel Roth, The Halakhic Process: A Systemic Analysis (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1986), and Elliot Dorff and Arthur Rosett, A Living Tree (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988).
13: A Family Portrait: Jews Tomorrow
The quotation from Michael Wyschogrod is taken from his article “A Theology of Jewish Unity,” Le’ela 21 (Spring 1986, 26–30). His book The Body of Faith (Minneapolis: Seabury Press, 1983) is highly relevant to the theme of the chapter. The quotation from R. Soloveitchik is taken from his On Repentance, translated by Pinchas Peli (Jerusalem: Oroth, 1980, 137).