The bare outline of the story of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is well known both to scholars and in the popular imagination. The precise details―the sequence and causal interplay of events, even some of the key players behind the scenes―are less well known and sometimes completely forgotten or misconstrued. The recovery of this history in all its complexity is vital for understanding how and why scholarly work on the Scrolls developed as it did over the six decades during which the texts were slowly published. Dr. Kalman recovers the fascinating story of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion's involvement with the Dead Sea Scrolls from their discovery in 1948 until the early 1990s when they were first made accessible to all scholars and to the public. Scholars at HUC-JIR actively participated in efforts to acquire and preserve the manuscripts and played a significant part in breaking the monopoly of scholars initially assigned to publish them. Despite these activities, a number of HUC-JIR’s influential teachers took a negative view of the scrolls. As a consequence, rabbinical students either did not encounter the material or left the institution with a view of it that was far from the mainstream. This book traces the activities of HUC-JIR’s administration and faculty over five decades, the contribution they made to the new academic field, and their influence on how knowledge of the Dead Sea Scrolls was shared with the community at large. Many details about security negatives stored at HUC and about the bootleg reconstruction are revealed for the first time.

Hebrew Union College and the Dead Sea Scrolls

History

Kalman, Jason

Americas

Hebrew Union College Press

In the last two decades, Jewish historians worldwide have developed and refined the discussion of an “early modern” period in Jewish culture, spanning roughly three centuries from 1500 to 1800, and have increasingly found this periodization to be a useful heuristic for interpreting historical developments. Thirty-one leading scholars both within and beyond Jewish studies advance, refine, and challenge how we understand the Jewish early modern period. The collection includes a comprehensive range of topics, beginning by examining authority structures of Jewish communities following the expulsions and migrations that reshaped the geographical contours of the Jewish world. The formation of Jewish communities, communal autonomy, and cultural representations of leadership are explored, pointing to a geographical remapping of a Jewish early modernity that can contribute to a better understanding of the integrated economic and cultural landscape of the time. The volume then moves to consider Jewish intellectual life in light of demographic, political, and technological change―especially the advent of print culture. From there, the discussion moves to cultural and intellectual interchange, especially between Jews and Christians, and next, to eighteenth-century Jewish culture as a fulcrum of the early and late modernity. Finally, the book concludes by tracing the early modern as it is both etched into and effaced from later eras, reflecting on the project of historiography as both retelling the past and connecting to the past in the present. Read individually, the essays in this volume are finely detailed case studies that illuminate specific aspects of Jewish culture. Read as a mosaic, the studies combine to form a rich and nuanced portrait of a culture that is both a contributor to and a product of early modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

Jewish Culture in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of David B. Ruderman

Cohen, Richard I.

World

The Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of the Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. From its inception in 1924, its goal has been to cultivate Jewish learning and facilitate the dissemination of cutting-edge scholarship across the spectrum of Jewish studies, including The Bible, rabbinics, language and literature, history, philosophy, and religion. It was in January 1919 that a new quarterly journal first appeared on the American intellectual scene: the Journal of Jewish Lore and Philosophy was the first incarnation of what would later become the Hebrew Union College Annual. David Neumark, professor of philosophy at Hebrew Union College, conceived his journal as a clearinghouse for Jewish scholarship, and so the Hebrew Union College Annual remains today. With a history spanning nearly a century, it stands as a chronicle of Jewish scholarship through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.

Hebrew Union College Annual Volumes 82-83: 2011-2012 Volume 82 (English and Hebrew Edition)

The Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. With a history spanning nearly a century, it stands as a chronicle of Jewish scholarship through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.

Hebrew Union College Annual Volumes 84-85

Hebrew Union College Annual Volume 86 (Volume 86)

Leyb Naydus (1890–1918) expanded the possibilities of Yiddish poetry via his rich cosmopolitan works, introducing a wealth of themes and forms seldom seen in that language, including some of its first sonnets of literary merit. A devotee of European Symbolism, Naydus’s poems shimmer with his love of nature, especially that of his native Lithuania. His groundbreaking poetry explores classicism, exoticism, eroticism, Orientalism, and Judaism with equal verve.             Naydus’s work adds to our understanding of the creation of a major literature in a minor language. Indeed, this book shows how the poetics of minor-language literatures innovate simultaneously from within and without, and how those interactions can offer even greater creative possibilities than the major language literatures with which they were in conversation. Naydus’s unique body of work not only expanded the repertoire of Yiddish poetry but also cemented its place on the world literary stage, convincing young Yiddish writers that this was a language that could fulfill their artistic aspirations.             Literary critic Naftoli Vaynig’s lengthy essay on Naydus, written in 1943 in the Vilne Ghetto, makes a remarkable case for why the poems of this cosmopolitan aesthete, who died so tragically young, should serve as a fitting emblem for a culture threatened with extinction. Finkin’s Exile as Home, published here with a translation of Vaynig’s essay, Naydus Studies, extends that argument.

Exile as Home: The Cosmopolitan Poetics of Leyb Naydus

Literature & Fiction

Finkin, Jordan D.

History & Criticism

A description of Werner Weinberg’s life during the Nazi period in Germany and then Holland, his imprisonment in Bergen-Belsen, and his unique personal reflections on his life after the war.

Self-Portrait of a Holocaust Survivor

Weinberg, Werner

The Hebrew Union College Annual is the flagship journal of Hebrew Union College Press and the primary face of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion to the academic world. With a history spanning nearly a century, it stands as a chronicle of Jewish scholarship through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.  

Hebrew Union College Annual Volume 87

<div>In this volume of essays, eminent Jewish scholars from around the world present introductions to the different parts of the Bible for the wider public. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The essays encompass a general introduction to the Torah in Jewish life, and include specific essays on each of the Five Books of Moses,&nbsp; as well as on the Haftarot, Neviim, and Ketuvim. The contributions provide an overview of the core content of each book as well as highlight central themes and the reception and relevance of these themes in Jewish life and culture past and present. These essays, informed by and based on the&nbsp; profound academic research of their authors, together provide an invaluable bridge between high-level academic insight and the study of the Bible both in synagogues and in homes. &nbsp;</div>

Engaging Torah: A Jewish Guide to Biblical Study

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

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 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 rabbis 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 God’s 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.

Agony in the Pulpit: Jewish Preaching in Response to Nazi Persecution and Mass Murder 1933-1945

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