Normative Judaism? Jews, Judaism and Jewish Identity

Melilah Supplement 1: The Proceedings of the British Association for J.S. 2008

This collection of short case studies considers the issue of normatively in Judaism and Jewish identity. The questions of how and why certain aspects of Jewish life and thought come to be regarded as authoritative or normative, rather than inauthentic or marginal, have been and continue to be contentious ones. Topics include the philosopher Moses Maimonides, the composer Felix Mendelssohn, the self-perception of communal leadership in Manchester during the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries, sermons of Jewish Reform rabbis during the Second World War, Orthodox rabbinic debate about war in general, representations of Jews in photographic exhibitions, the idea of Jewish music, and the academic study of Judaism itself.

Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC

Availability: In stock

SKU (ISBN): 978-1-60724-161-4

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Publication Status: In Print

Series: Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies (1759-1953)

Publication Date: May 22,2012

Interior Color: Black

Trim Size: 7 x 10

Page Count: 111

Language: English

ISBN: 978-1-60724-161-4

$56.00

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Melilah is an interdisciplinary journal concerned with Jewish law, history, literature, religion, culture and thought in the ancient, medieval and modern eras. It was launched in 2004 by Bernard Jackson and Ephraim Nissan under the auspices of the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester as the New Series of the journal of the same name founded by Edward Robertson and Meir Wallenstein, published in Hebrew by Manchester University Press from 1944 to 1955. Five substantial volumes, each of around two hundred pages, were produced before the series was discontinued. In his editorial foreword to the first edition, Robertson explained that Melilah had been established to promote Jewish scholarship in the face of the threat posed by the War and its aftermath. The title of the journal refers to the ears of corn that are plucked to rub in the hands before the grains can be eaten (Deut. 23:25).

Contents

This supplementary volume of Melilah (Normative Judaism? Jews, Judaism and Jewish Identity: The Proceedings of the British Association for Jewish Studies 2008) is a collection of short case studies considers the issue of normatively in Judaism and Jewish identity. The questions of how and why certain aspects of Jewish life and thought come to be regarded as authoritative or normative, rather than inauthentic or marginal, have been and continue to be contentious ones. The approach adopted here is to allow distinct case studies, mainly but not exclusively from the modern period, to speak for themselves. Topics include the philosopher Moses Maimonides, the composer Felix Mendelssohn, the self-perception of communal leadership in Manchester during the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries, a comparison of unpublished sermons by a British Orthodox and a British Reform Rabbi during the First World War, Orthodox rabbinic debate about war in general, representations of Jews in photographic exhibitions, the idea of Jewish music, and the academic study of Judaism itself.

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	Contributor	Biography
	Daniel Langton	Daniel R. Langton is Professor of the History of Jewish-Christian Relations and Co-director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester. He has a PhD from the Parkes Centre for Jewish/Non-Jewish Relations at the University of Southampton. He has published extensively in the areas of Jewish-Christian relations and modern Jewish thought.
	Philip Alexander

Table of Contents (page 5)
Preface (page 7)
IN DEFENCE OF NORMATIVITY IN THE STUDY OF JUDAISM by Philip Alexander (page 9)
MAIMONIDEAN MARGINS by Daniel Davies (page 21)
THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO DEFINING JEWISH IDENTITY, AND THE CASE OF FELIX MENDELSSOHN by Daniel R. Langton (page 34)
THE ORDINARINESS OF BEING JEWISH: JEWISH NORMALITY IN MANCHESTER, 1830 …1880 by Bill Williams (page 49)
NORMATIVE JUDAISM IN THE CRISIS OF WAR: SERMONS BY ABRAHAM COHEN AND ISRAEL MATTUCK by Marc Saperstein (page 58)
AMBIVALENT NORMATIVITY: REASONS FOR CONTEMPORARY JEWISH DEBATE OVER THE LAWS OF WAR by George R. Wilkes (page 72)
WHOSE MUSIC? OWNERSHIP AND IDENTITY IN JEWISH MUSIC by Ruth Rosenfelder (page 88)
ARE HOLOCAUST VICTIMS JEWISH? LOOKING AT PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM HOLOCAUST EXHIBITION by K. Hannah Holtschneider (page 97)

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