Normative Judaism? Jews, Judaism and Jewish Identity

Melilah Supplement 1: The Proceedings of the British Association for J.S. 2008

Daniel R. Langton, Philip S. Alexander

• Publisher: Gorgias Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781463234805
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish Theology

This collection of short case studies considers the issue of normatively in Judaism and Jewish identity. The questions of how and why certain aspects of Jewish life and thought come to be regarded as authoritative or normative, rather than inauthentic or marginal, have been and continue to be contentious ones. Topics include the philosopher Moses Maimonides, the composer Felix Mendelssohn, the self-perception of communal leadership in Manchester during the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries, sermons of Jewish Reform rabbis during the Second World War, Orthodox rabbinic debate about war in general, representations of Jews in photographic exhibitions, the idea of Jewish music, and the academic study of Judaism itself.

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• IN DEFENCE OF NORMATIVITY IN THE STUDY OF JUDAISM
• MAIMONIDEAN MARGINS
• THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO DEFINING JEWISH IDENTITY, AND THE CASE OF FELIX MENDELSSOHN
• THE ORDINARINESS OF BEING JEWISH: JEWISH ‘NORMALITY’ IN MANCHESTER, 1830 –1880
• ‘NORMATIVE JUDAISM’ IN THE CRISIS OF WAR: SERMONS BY ABRAHAM COHEN AND ISRAEL MATTUCK
• AMBIVALENT NORMATIVITY: REASONS FOR CONTEMPORARY JEWISH DEBATE OVER THE LAWS OF WAR
• WHOSE MUSIC? OWNERSHIP AND IDENTITY IN JEWISH MUSIC
• ARE HOLOCAUST VICTIMS JEWISH? LOOKING AT PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM HOLOCAUST EXHIBITION