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Cultural Disjunctions Paul Mendes-Flohr

Cultural Disjunctions By Paul Mendes-Flohr

Cultural Disjunctions by Paul Mendes-Flohr


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Cultural Disjunctions Summary

Cultural Disjunctions: Post-Traditional Jewish Identities by Paul Mendes-Flohr

The identity of contemporary Jews is multifaceted, no longer necessarily defined by an observance of the Torah and God's commandments. Indeed, the Jews of modernity are no longer exclusively Jewish. They are affiliated with a host of complementary and sometimes clashing communities-vocational, professional, political, and cultural-whose interests may not coincide with that of the community of their birth and inherited culture. In Cultural Disjunctions, Paul Mendes-Flohr explores the possibility of a spiritually and intellectually engaged cosmopolitan Jewish identity for our time. Reflecting on the need to participate in the spiritual life of Judaism so that it enables multiple relations beyond its borders and allows one to balance Jewish commitment with a genuine obligation to the universal, Mendes-Flohr lays out what this delicate balance can look like for contemporary Jews, both in Israel and in diasporic communities worldwide. Cultural Disjunctions walks us through the labyrinth of twentieth-century Jewish cultural identities and commitments. Ultimately, Mendes-Flohr calls for Jews to remain discontent, not just with themselves but also and especially with the reigning social and political order, and to fight for its betterment.

Cultural Disjunctions Reviews

Cultural Disjunctions preserves the transcendent, divine, legacy of Judaism while ushering it into the modern world. The book argues for a version of Jewish identity which espouses a radical cosmopolitanism, holds fast to the endless interpretability of Jewish religious texts, makes the case for a way of being Jewish which would take its place among the multiple identities and forms of community offered by modernity, but would do so without sacrificing its sense of a unique spiritual calling grounded in revelation. This is an important book by one of our foremost Jewish scholars and thinkers. * Jacqueline Rose, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, London *
In Mendes-Flohr's enchanted world of enlightened Jewish letters, the neo-Kantian Hermann Cohen consorts with the popular Talmudist Adin Steinsaltz, and the baptized Heine writes odes to the Sabbath cholent. The humanistic vision of a Judaism open and welcoming to kultur in all its forms is by turns moving and bracing-and welcoming to critique as well as renewal. * Noah Feldman, Harvard Law School *

About Paul Mendes-Flohr

Paul Mendes-Flohr is the Dorothy Grant Maclear professor emeritus of Modern Jewish History and Thought in the Divinity School and associate faculty in the Department of History at the University of Chicago, as well as professor emeritus of Jewish thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of many books, including Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent, and he is the coeditor of The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Discontinuous Identities, Dialectical Imponderables

1. Post-Traditional Jewish Identities
2. Jewish Cultural Memory: Its Manifold Configurations
3. Jewish Learning, Jewish Hope
4. Post-Traditional Faith
5. Within and Beyond Borders
6. In Praise of Discontent
Coda

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Additional information

GOR012139728
9780226784861
022678486X
Cultural Disjunctions: Post-Traditional Jewish Identities by Paul Mendes-Flohr
Used - Very Good
Hardback
The University of Chicago Press
2021-07-20
144
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Cultural Disjunctions