Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture - Softcover

9780415863124: Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415863120 ISBN 13: 9780415863124

Publisher: Routledge, 2014

The Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture is an extensively updated revision of the very successful Companion to Jewish Culture published in 1989 and has now been updated throughout.

Experts from all over the world contribute entries ranging from 200 to 1000 words broadly, covering the humanities, arts, social sciences, sport and popular culture, and 5000-word essays contextualize the shorter entries, and provide overviews to aspects of culture in the Jewish world.

Ideal for student and general readers, the articles and biographies have been written by scholars and academics, musicians, artists and writers, and the book now contains up-to-date bibliographies, suggestions for further reading, comprehensive cross referencing, and a full index.

This is a resource, no student of Jewish history will want to go without.

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From Booklist:

The Blackwell Companion to Jewish Culture, published in 1989, is a single-volume source that includes biographies and thematic surveys on all aspects of Jewish culture. This new two-volume consecutively paged set from Routledge is its successor. Abramson, editor of The Blackwell Companion, continues in that capacity. With a multinational group of contributors, she has updated the existing entries and added more material. Two-thirds of the content in this edition is new. The signed alphabetical entries include biographies, essays on topics related to Jewish culture, and surveys of topics that are more peripheral. All articles have bibliographies.

According to the preface, for the purpose of this work, modern is anything after the middle of the eighteenth century, the time of the Haskalah (enlightenment) movement, which began after the emancipation of the Jews in the 1790s. Jewish is used broadly to include "involvement in this community" in relation to cultural and creative activity whether or not the person practiced the religion. culture refers to shared experiences and sources. Within these parameters, readers will find biographies of Moses Mendelssohn and the Ba'al Shem Tov as well as of Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, and Arnold Schoenberg. There are articles on Arab Jewish culture, modern biblical scholarship, and the Holocaust in American Jewish philosophy. An article on Jews and Marxism examines the Jewish passion for social justice as a reinterpretation of messianism. A series of articles examines the Holocaust in art, film and television, and literature. Added coverage of Sephardic culture and of Jewish life in Australia and South Africa shift the work away from being heavily focused on Europe and the U.S.

By concentrating on modern Jewish culture and examining those who challenge or take issue with it (Philip Roth, Karl Marx), this encyclopedia provides a unique point of view. Since it is relatively brief and focused, patrons will still need to consult in-depth sources such as the Encyclopedia Judaica (1972) for a broader picture. It is, however, a useful addition to reference collections in academic, synagogue, and large public libraries. Barbara Bibel
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review:

'Ambitious and useful. Recommended.' - Choice

'A well-rounded, scholarly overview of Jewish culture from the 18th century to the present. It successfully offers a collective definition of modern Jewish culture, as well as a gateway to more comprehensive study.' - Against the Grain

'The contributors have done an impressive job... Independent, unbiased, scholarly, yet reader-friendly, the [Encyclopedia's] approach is indeed much welcomed.' - Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, UK

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