Well, I almost went away for Shabbos, to an Orthodox couple in Moshav Modiin. It fell through when I told them that I use an electric wheelchair. They were very nice about it, and didn't say 'no you bad evil Jew', but I knew it was a no. He asked me to think about getting someone to push me in a manual wheelchair in the future, and said that it isn ( Read more... )

Yesterday was Tisha B'Av. Hope you all had an easy fast. I went to the Orthodox Ashkenazic synagogue here on Saturday night (after Sueda at the Jeff Seidel Centre - I'm afraid I didn't eat any eggs or lentils or ashes) and Sunday morning. As Tisha B'Av was straight after Shabbat, and you have to start the fast from sundown but can't make havdalah ( Read more... )

General/Introductory [Inc. some Orthodox]
H.H. Donin, To Pray as a Jew: A Guide to the Prayer Book and the Synagogue Service, Basic Books, 1980

H.H. Donin, To Be a Jew: A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Life

D.S. Ariel, What do Jews Believe? The Spiritual Foundations of Judaism
New York: Schocken Books, 1995

D.J. Goldberg and J.D. Rayner, ( Read more... )

D. Boyarin, ‘The Close Call; or, Could a Pharisee Be a Christian?’

p.266 - The So-Called Parting of the Ways

“Even scholars who have recognised that Christianity can hardly be derived as a ‘daughter’ religion from Judaism have still tended to assume a distinct ‘parting of the ways’ sometime in the first or second century, after which there was hardly ( Read more... )

Political Zionism - R&G notes (I swear I am ruddy well burning this book when I’m finished this year)

p.59 - Zionism emerged against a backdrop of brutal persecution in Eastern Europe, and Central-European political antisemitism

Theodor Herzl covered the Dreyfus case as a young journalist, and strongly affected by the antisemitism he witnessed

p.160-1 ( Read more... )

The Memoirs of Glückel bas Judah Loeb

Gluckel born in 1646

Started to write in 1690-91, up until 1699; then there is a long silence until 1715 when she begins again

Married 1st, most beloved husband, Chaim Hameln, when she was aged 14 (betrothed aged 12)
→ Chaim the “perfect pattern of a pious Jew”
-    praises his modesty, piety, honesty, patience, ( Read more... )

‘Emergence of Modern Denominations’, The Jewish Religion: a Companion, L. Jacobs

Haskalah not anti-trad per se - many maskilim personally observant

→ but approaches to educ and trad fundamentally clashed

Maskilim introduced sec learning into curric, & rejected the trad method of teaching Jewish religion - through biblical commentary and Talmud - ( Read more... )

Enlightenment and Haskalah - R&G notes

p.132 - Some Jews very quick to seize upon the Enlightenment ideas in late 18thC/19thC

Jew became important figure for E thinkers - symbolised the oppression and bigotry of state churches and the ancien regime

Variety in position of Jews across Europe - some places fairly good,

e.g. Netherlands and England (just ( Read more... )

The Shadow of the Cross, Goldberg and Rayner notes

p.96 - Muslim empire fractures into smaller, independent Muslim states, including Moorish Spain

vibrant intellectual climate encourages work of the masoretes in developing a system for vocalising and punctuating the Bible

Fatamid dynasty in Egypt - tolerant
Encouraged the flowering of old Jewish ( Read more... )

The Gaonic Age Notes - Rayner & Goldberg

p.88 - Abba - student of Judah ha-Nasi, became known as Rav - the Teacher - the scholar of his generation (and beyond)

went back to Babylon to found own academy at Sura (note bleeding away of influence from Judea to Diaspora, esp Babylon)

Considerable toleration of and freedom for Jews in Mesopotamia, Parthian ( Read more... )