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Covenant and Civility

From the April 2005 Print Edition

For the Sake of Heaven and Earth: The New Encounter Between Judaism and Christianity by Irving Greenberg Jewish Publications Society of America, 274 pp. $20 paper The title of Irving Greenberg’s collection of essays” For the Sake of Heaven and Earth: The New Encounter between Judaism and . . . . Continue Reading »

American Judaism: A History

From the May 2004 Print Edition

This year marks the 350th anniversary of Jewish settlement in North America. In 1654, twenty-three Jews arrived in Dutch New Amsterdam from Recife, Brazil, fleeing the Inquisition. Although not the first Jews to set foot in North America, they were the first who intended to settle here. Try as he . . . . Continue Reading »

Fretful Orthodoxy

From the October 2003 Print Edition

There is a pamphlet making its way, via the Internet, through the Modern Orthodox stream of the American Jewish community. Written by Gil Perl and Yaakov Weinstein, graduate students at Harvard and MIT respectively, the pamphlet presents itself as “A Parent’s Guide to Orthodox . . . . Continue Reading »

Spinoza’s Project

From the January 1998 Print Edition

Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity By Steven B. Smith Yale University Press. 270 pp. $30 Spinoza has had an umistakable appeal for free thinkers-Jewish and gentile-over the past two centuries, and his appeal seems greatest when a rigorous institutionalized faith collides with . . . . Continue Reading »

Communal Foundations

From the January 1994 Print Edition

The Idea of Civil Society by adam seligman free press, 220 pages, $24.95 Adam Seligman’s book, while primarily a theoretical, historical, and social inquiry into the notion of civil society, is motivated by a contemporary concern: namely, the felt need for a new representation of society in . . . . Continue Reading »