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The Scholar as Polemicist

Judaism: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow by hans küng, translated by john bowden crossroad, 753 pages, $39.50 Readers of Catholic maverick Hans Küng’s works have come to expect of him encyclopedic volumes displaying both prodigious scholarship and sharp polemic. And in these respects, the . . . . Continue Reading »

Fighting on Three Fronts

Jewish Polemics by arthur hertzberg columbia university press, 259 pages, $27.95 Jewish Polemics is a collection of essays written over the past ten years or so by the well-known American rabbi, professor, and communal leader Arthur Hertzberg. The title of the collection is aptly chosen: anyone who . . . . Continue Reading »

Judaism and Postmodernity

Eugene Borowitz, the leading theologian associated with the Reform movement of American Judaism, has written an important and ambitious book. Renewing the Covenant: A Theology for the Postmodern Jew is the culmination of Borowitz’s long theological journey out of religious liberalism by . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted 93

The Book of Legends/Sefer Ha-Aggadah:Legends from the Talmud and Midrashedited by hayim nahman bialik and yehoshua hana ravnitzkyschocken, 897 pages, $75  Anthologies are frequently described as “treasure troves” of this or that. But The Book of Legends really is a treasure trove . . . . Continue Reading »

The Banality of Sin

The Seven Deadly Sins: Jewish, Christian, and Classical Reflections on Human Nature by solomon schimmel free press, 298 pages, $22.95 Professor of Jewish Education and Psychology at the Hebrew College, Boston, and a practicing psychologist, Solomon Schimmel here addresses the theme of the seven . . . . Continue Reading »

Messianic Jews: A Troubling Presence

When it comes to Christian-Jewish relations, particularly Christian-Jewish dialogue, the most sensitive issues of all, of course, are those of mission and conversion. Thus those of us Christians who are seriously engaged in such dialogue need to be particularly sensitive about conduct on our part . . . . Continue Reading »

Is Modernity Good for the Jews?

In Genesis (24:10) it is said that Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, descended from Mesopotamia—or as it is called in Hebrew Aram-Naharaim, literally, a land of the two rivers. Paul Mendes-Flohr notes that when the great philosopher and theologian Franz Rosenzweig came to . . . . Continue Reading »

November Letters

Beyond Good Will Alan L. Mittleman’s “Christianity in the Mirror of Jewish Thought” (August/September) sets forth an uncommonly interesting and well-crafted thesis. Considering the trivialization of the Judeo-Christian dialogue, its reduction to an exchange of condescension on the one side . . . . Continue Reading »

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