San Antonio College Library

"The Cambridge Companion to American Judaism adopts an inclusive perspective on Jewish religious experience. Three initial chapters cover the development of Judaism in America from 1654, when Sephardic Jews first landed in New Amsterdam, until today. Subsequent chapters go beyond a presentation of the basic material and include cutting-edge scholarship and original ideas while remaining accessible at an introductory level."--Jacket.

Three secular women, Myriam Klotz, Rus Burdman, and Marcia Jarmel, journey into the Orthodox Jewish world. As they grapple or embrace, their experiences throw pat answers about tradition, community, and meaning into relief.

Annotation

The second half of the twenthieth century has been a time when American Jews have experienced a minimum of prejudice and almost all domains of life have been accessible to them, but it has also been a time of assimilation, of swelling rates of inter-marriage, and of large numbers ignoring their Jewishness completely. Jews have no trouble building synagogues, but they have all sorts of trouble filling them. The quality of Jewish education is perhapes...

Freedman illuminates the forces that have undermined the traditional peaceful coexistence among Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionst branches and secular and unaffiliated Jews. As he weighs the arguments of both extremes, Freedman comes to the controversial conclusion that the Jewish-American community is headed for a Reformation, a permanent fracture of one faith into many. "At a time when American Jews should feel more secure and...

Until a quarter century ago little was known or acknowledged about the role American women played in the shaping of America's religious history. In Our Own Voices reclaims and affirms the previously ignored historical contributions of women by recovering many long-silenced voices. Here, woven together into a multicultural, multiethnic, and multifaith tapestry, are many of their remarkable contributions to American religion written in their own words. Restored...

This book is about the beliefs, doctrines, history, institutions, and leaders of the Jewish religious community. It is based on historical evidence as well as interviews and direct observation of about 100 synagogues in the country and presents a full portrait of a religious tradition that comprises only two percent of America's population but has a large influence on American culture.