New Books in Jewish Studies

Interview with Scholars of Judaism about their New Books

Religion & Spirituality
Judaism
1151
Devin Naar, “Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottom...
In Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece (Stanford University Press, 2016) Devin Naar delves deep into the archives to produce this intimate and exciting portrait of Salonica’s Jewish community between the late 19th century unti...
44 min
1152
Dov Weiss, “Pious Irreverence: Confronting God ...
Judaism is often described as a religion that tolerates, even celebrates arguments with God. Unlike Christianity and Islam, it is said, Judaism endorses a tradition of protest as first expressed in the biblical stories of Abraham, Job, and Jeremiah.
57 min
1153
Bryan K. Roby, “The Mizrahi Era of Rebellion: I...
In The Mizrahi Era of Rebellion: Israel’s Forgotten Civil Rights Struggle, 1948-1966 (Syracuse University Press, 2015), Bryan K. Roby, fellow at the Centre for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, traces the early history of Mizrahi struggle f...
25 min
1154
Jennifer Glaser, “Borrowed Voices: Writing and ...
In Borrowed Voices: Writing and Racial Ventriloquism in the Jewish American Imagination (Rutgers University Press, 2016), Jennifer Glaser, Associate Professor of English and comparative literature and an affiliate faculty member in Judaic studies and w...
23 min
1155
Jeffrey Gurock, “The Jews of Harlem: The Rise, ...
In The Jews of Harlem: The Rise, Decline, and Revival of a Jewish Community (New York University Press, 2016), Jeffrey Gurock, Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University, returns to the neighborhood he studied in his first sch...
36 min
1156
Fred Amram, “We’re in America Now: A Survivor’s...
In this lively memoir, We’re In America Now: A Survivor’s Stories (Holy Cow! Press, 2016), Fred Amram offers a series of stories documenting his childhood in 1930s Germany through his coming-of-age in New York City,
31 min
1157
Alisa Solomon, “Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural H...
In Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof (Metropolitan, 2013), Alisa Solomon, Director of the Arts and Culture concentration in the MA program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism,
44 min
1158
Jan Schwarz, “Survivors and Exiles: Yiddish Cul...
In Survivors and Exiles: Yiddish Culture after the Holocaust (Wayne State University Press, 2015), Jan Schwarz, Associate Professor of Yiddish studies at Lund University, Sweden, reveals that in the two and a half decades after the Holocaust,
38 min
1159
Carsten Schapkow, “Role Model and Countermodel:...
Why were German Jews so fascinated by Iberian Sephardic history? In Role Model and Countermodel: The Golden Age of Iberian Jewry and German Jewish Culture during the Era of Emancipation (Lexington Books, 2015), University of Oklahoma Professor Dr.
49 min
1160
Sarah Abrevaya Stein, “Extraterritorial Dreams:...
Sarah Abrevaya Stein’s rich new book, Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2016) takes readers on a global journey in search of late 19th and early 20th century Se...
37 min
1161
Isabelle Hesse, “The Politics of Jewishness in ...
In The Politics of Jewishness in Contemporary World Literature: The Holocaust, Zionism and Colonialism (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), Isabelle Hesse, Lecturer in English at the University of Sydney, reads a wide range of novels from post-war Germany to I...
22 min
1162
Adam Rovner, “In the Shadow of Zion: Promised L...
In his book, In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel (New York University Press, 2014), Adam Rovner, Associate Professor of English and Jewish Literature at the University of Denver, explores the possibilities for Jewish homelands before th...
29 min
1163
Roberta Rosenthal Kwall, “The Myth of the Cultu...
In The Myth of the Cultural Jew: Culture and Law in Jewish Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2015), Roberta Rosenthal Kwall, the Raymond P. Niro Professor of Intellectual Property Law at DePaul University College of Law,
28 min
1164
Jonathan Garb, “Yearnings of the Soul: Psycholo...
In Yearnings of the Soul: Psychological Thought in Modern Kabbalah (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Jonathan Garb, the Gershom Scholem Professor in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
28 min
1165
Peter Trawny, “Heidegger and the Myth of a Jewi...
In Heidegger and the Myth of a Jewish World Conspiracy (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Peter Trawny, professor of philosophy and founder and director of the Martin Heidegger Institute at the University of Wuppertal,
19 min
1166
Robert O’Kell, “Disraeli: The Romance of Politi...
Benjamin Disraeli was unique among British prime ministers in the 19th century in many ways, but perhaps none more so than for his career as a novelist. Whereas many scholars have treated Disraeli’s literary endeavors as an aberration born of financial...
73 min
1167
Dov Waxman, “Trouble in the Tribe: The American...
In Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel (Princeton University Press, 2016), Dov Waxman, professor of political science, international affairs, and Israel studies at Northeastern University,
29 min
1168
Michael Lesher, “Sexual Abuse, Shonda and Conce...
Sexual Abuse, Shonda and Concealment in Orthodox Jewish Communities (McFarland, 2014) analyzes how and why cases of child sexual abuse have been systematically concealed in Orthodox Jewish communities. The book (the first of its kind) thoroughly examin...
66 min
1169
Jack Jacobs, “The Frankfurt School, Jewish Live...
In The Frankfurt School, Jewish Lives, and Antisemitism (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Jack Jacobs, Professor of Political Science at John Jay College and the CUNY Graduate Center, investigates how the Jewish backgrounds of major Critical Theorist...
45 min
1170
Diana L. Linden, “Ben Shahn’s New Deal Murals: ...
In Ben Shahn’s New Deal Murals: Jewish Identity in the American Scene (Wayne State University Press, 2015), Diana L. Linden, an art historian of American art based in Claremont, California, explores the colorful–and political–murals of the leftist arti...
27 min
1171
Josh Lambert, “Unclean Lips: Obscenity, Jews, a...
In Unclean Lips: Obscenity, Jews, and American Culture (New York University Press, 2014), Josh Lambert, Academic Director of the Yiddish Book Center and Visiting Assistant Professor of English at UMass Amherst,
31 min
1172
Daniel Jutte, “The Age of Secrecy: Jews, Christ...
In his expansive The Age of Secrecy: Jews, Christians, and the Economy of Secrets, 1400-1800 (Yale University Press, 2015), Daniel Jutte suggests new ways of understanding the scientific revolution of the early modern period through exploring the ways ...
31 min
1173
Adam Mendelsohn, “The Rag Race” (NYU Press, 2015)
In The Rag Race: How Jews Sewed Their Way to Success in America and the British Empire (New York University Press, 2015), Adam Mendelsohn, Associate Professor of History at the University of Cape Town, embarks on a comparative exploration of Jews in th...
28 min
1174
Ethan Katz, “The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews a...
In The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North Africa to France (Harvard University Press, 2015), Ethan Katz examines and interrogates Jewish-Muslim relations from 1914 to the present. Arguing that interactions between Jews and Muslims must...
56 min
1175
Michael Barnett, “The Star and the Stripes” (Pr...
In The Star and the Stripes: A History of the Foreign Policies of American Jews (Princeton University Press, 2016), Michael Barnett, University Professor of International Affairs and Political Science at the George Washington University,
31 min