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Boundaries of Jewish Identity

Naomi B Sokoloff editor Susan A Glenn editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:University of Washington Press

Published:1st Jul '11

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Boundaries of Jewish Identity cover

This interdisciplinary collection draws on work in law, anthropology, history, sociology, literature, and popular culture to consider contemporary and historical responses to the question: "Who and what is Jewish?"

This interdisciplinary collection draws on work in law, anthropology, history, sociology, literature and popular culture to consider contemporary and historical responses to the question: "Who and what is Jewish?"

The subject of Jewish identity is one of the most vexed and contested issues of modern religious and ethnic group history. This interdisciplinary collection draws on work in law, anthropology, history, sociology, literature, and popular culture to consider contemporary and historical responses to the question “Who and what is Jewish?”

These essays are focused especially on the issues of who creates the definitions, and how, and in what social and political contexts. The ten leading authorities writing here also look at the forces, ranging from new genetic and reproductive technologies to increasingly multicultural societies, that push against established boundaries. The authors examine how Jews have imagined themselves and how definitions of Jewishness have been established, enforced, challenged, and transformed. Does being a Jew require religious belief, practice, and formal institutional affiliation? Is there a biological or physical aspect of Jewish identity? What is the status of the convert to another religion? How do definitions play out in different geographic and historical settings? What makes Boundaries of Jewish Identity distinctive is its attention to the various Jewish “epistemologies” or ways of knowing who counts as a Jew. These essays reveal that possible answers reflect the different social, intellectual, and political locations of those who are asking.

This book speaks to readers concerned with Jewish life and culture and to audiences interested in religious, cultural, and ethnic studies. It provides an excellent opportunity to examine how Jews fit into an increasingly diverse America and an increasingly complicated global society.

"An outstanding collection of essays . . . both scholarly and highly readable . . . It is a quintessential work of Jewish scholarship - the questions are hard and the answers complex, open-ended, and mid-wives of future questions."

-- Riv-Ellen Prell * Lilith *

"This highly readable co-edited volume . . . . is highly compatible with a critical approach to the study of identity and identity making, a perspective that is increasingly finding its way into the study of identity and identity making scholarship."

-- Debra Kaufman * H-Juda

ISBN: 9780295990545

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 544g

259 pages