Matthew Berke

From the 1930s through the 1950s, Reinhold Niebuhr achieved a singular stature among twentieth“century American theologians. The son of a German immigrant pastor, Niebuhr (1892“1971) was not a popular evangelist but rather a philosopher of public life, bringing the insights of biblical . . . . Continue Reading »

The sanctity and infinite worth of every human being is a quintessential Jewish value, grounded in the biblical notion that man is made in the image and likeness of God. According to the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:5): “Whoever destroys one life is as if he destroyed a whole world, and whoever . . . . Continue Reading »

The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis By William D. Rubinstein Routledge 267 pp. $25 There is now a large and growing body of Holocaust scholarship that blames the democracies”especially Britain and the United States”for not preventing or . . . . Continue Reading »

Some time this year the Reform movement will issue its new High Holy Day prayerbook, for the first time putting between hard covers a major liturgical work incorporating “gender-sensitive” language. Gender sensitivity is the rubric that for two decades has been used to purge Reform worship of . . . . Continue Reading »

Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory by Deborah Lipstadt Free Press, 278 pages, $22.95 Assassins of the Memory: Essays on the Denial of the Holocaust. by Pierre Vidal-Naquet, translated by Jeffery Mehlman Columbia University Press, 205 pages, $27.50 Ever since the end of . . . . Continue Reading »

Professor Reinhold Niebuhr: A Mentor to the Twentieth Century by Ronald H. Stone Westminster/John Knox Press, 284 pages, $21.99 paper Niebuhr and His Age: Reinhold Niebuhr’s Prophetic Role in the Twentieth Century by Charles C. Brown Trinity Press International, $34.95 Of books and . . . . Continue Reading »

Besides being the quincentenary of Columbus’ voyage, 1992 has also been the centenary of the birth of the American churchman Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971 ). From the 1930s through the 1950s, Niebuhr was regarded by many as a kind of prophet, a public theologian who could explain modern . . . . Continue Reading »

The Civil War A film by Ken Burns Shown as a PBS television series; also available on nine VHS videocassettes (11 hours). Individual purchases from Time-Life Videos, $180. Institutional price from PBS Videos, $350. Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution by James M. McPherson Oxford . . . . Continue Reading »

Jewish Perspectives on Christianity edited by Franz A. Rothschild Crossroad, 363 pages, $29.50 The interfaith dialogue between Christians and Jews has become such a familiar feature of contemporary religious life that it is hard to imagine a time when it was virtually unheard of. Yet this dialogue . . . . Continue Reading »

The Emergence of Jewish Theology in America by Robert G. Goldy Indiana University Press, 149 pages, $25 Judaism was born in the Fertile Crescent when a young Semite, deeply troubled by his own sense of incompleteness and guilt, answered God’s call, and in so doing started a chosen people that . . . . Continue Reading »