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  Found in Translation: Essays on Biblical Jewish Translation in Honor of Leonard J. Greenspoon

  James W. Barker, Anthony LeDonne, and Joel N. Lohr

  Found in Translation is at once a themed volume on the translation of ancient Jewish texts and a Festschrift for Leonard J. Greenspoon, the Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Professor in Jewish Civilization and professor of classical and near Eastern studies and of theology at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Greenspoon has made significant contributions to the study of Jewish biblical translations, particularly the ancient translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, known as the Septuagint. This volume comprises an internationally renowned group of scholars presenting a wide range of original essays on Bible translation, the influence of culture on biblical translation, Bible translations’ reciprocal influence on culture, and the translation of various Jewish texts and collections, especially the Septuagint. Volume editors have painstakingly planned Found in Translation to have the broadest scope of any current work on Jewish biblical translation to reflect Greenspoon’s broad impact on the field throughout an august career.

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  The Year in C-SPAN Archives Research: Volume 4

  Robert X. Browning

  C-SPAN is the network of record for US political affairs, broadcasting live gavel-to-gavel proceedings of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and to other forums where public policy is discussed, debated, and decided––without editing, commentary, or analysis and with a balanced presentation of points of view.

  The C-SPAN Archives, located adjacent to Purdue University, is the home of the online C-SPAN Video Library. The Archives has copied all of C-SPAN's television content since 1987. Extensive indexing, captioning, and other enhanced online features provide researchers, policy analysts, students, teachers, and public officials with an unparalleled chronological and internally cross-referenced record for deeper study.

  The Year in C-SPAN Archives Research presents the finest interdisciplinary research utilizing tools of the C-SPAN Video Library. Each volume highlights recent scholarship and comprises leading experts and emerging voices in political science, journalism, psychology, computer science, communication, and a variety of other disciplines. Each section within each volume includes responses from expert discussants.

  Developed in partnership with the Brian Lamb School of Communication and with support from the C-SPAN Education Foundation, C-SPAN Insights is guided by the ideal that all experimental outcomes, including those from our American experiment, can be best improved by directed study driving richer engagement and better understanding.

  The Year in C-SPAN Archives Research—Volume 4, edited by Robert X. Browning, advances our understanding of the framing of mental health, HIV/AIDS, policing, and public health, and explores subjects such as audience reactions in C-SPAN covered debates, the Twitter presidency of Donald Trump, and collaborative learning using the C-SPAN Video Library.

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  Artesana de sí misma: Gabriela Mistral, una intelectual en cuerpo y palabra

  Claudia Cabello Hutt

  Artesana de sí misma by Claudia Cabello Hutt reevaluates the place of Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral in the literary and intellectual history of Latin America, illuminating and filling a number of lingering voids in the study of this canonical figure. Cabello Hutt introduces readers to Mistral’s vast but scarcely studied journalistic prose as well as her unpublished manuscripts, letters, and images held in the United States and in newly opened Chilean archives. Moving beyond her amply discussed poetry, Cabello Hutt demonstrates that Mistral’s essays, visual representations, and gender performance are key to understanding Mistral’s self-construction as a Latin American female intellectual and internationally recognized writer. From 1920 until her death in 1957, Mistral shaped salient national and transnational debates, brokered relations between major writers, and fashioned a new model of the transnational intellectual in the context of anti-imperialist Latinoamericanism, US-promoted Pan-Americanism, and rising populist politics and social movements of the time. Placing Mistral’s gender, class, and racial performances in richer context, Cabello Hutt reveals them as not only groundbreaking and strategically fashioned, but also as a logical product of the tensions, desires, and power struggles of the cultural field of this period—a cultural field in the process of redefining the interactions between the intellectual, the masses, and political and cultural institutions. Further, by mapping out the transatlantic intellectual networks in which Mistral operated—networks that included José Vasconcelos, Alfonso Reyes, Victoria Ocampo, and Joaquín García Monge—Artesana de sí misma also examines the processes of democratization and modernization that transformed the cultural field in the wider region between 1910 and 1940.

  Artesana de sí misma de Claudia Cabello Hutt reevalúa el lugar de Gabriela Mistral, premio Nobel de literatura, en la historia literaria e intelectual de América Latina. Cabello Hutt acerca a los lectores a la amplia, pero escasamente estudiada, prosa periodística de Mistral además de a un conjunto de manuscritos, cartas e imágenes provenientes de archivos norteamericanos y chilenos así como del recientemente abierto archivo de su albacea y compañera, Doris Dana. Artesana de sí misma explora más allá de la ampliamente estudiada poesía de Mistral y demuestra que su prosa, representación visual y performatividad de género son claves para comprender la auto-construcción de esta figura como una intelectual latinoamericana y una escritora de reconocimiento internacional. Desde 1920 hasta su muerte en 1957, Mistral participó activamente en debates nacionales y continentales, gestionó relaciones entre escritores y trazó un nuevo modelo de intelectual transnacional en el contexto de un latinoamericanismo anti-imperialista, que choca con un panamericanismo promovido por Estados Unidos, en décadas marcadas por revoluciones y movimientos sociales. Al ubicar el proceso de construcción de género, clase y raza de Mistral en un contexto más amplio, Cabello Hutt argumenta que este proceso no solo es original y estratégicamente diseñado sino que también es un producto lógico de las tensiones, deseos y luchas de poder que determinan el campo cultural latinoamericano de este periodo. Un campo cultural en proceso de redefinir las interacciones entre el intelectual, las masas y las instituciones políticas y culturales. Al trazar las redes intelectuales transatlánticas en que Mistral operaba -redes que incluían a José Vasconcelos, Alfonso Reyes, Romain Rolland, Victoria Ocampo y Joaquín García Monge, entre muchos otros- Artesana de sí misma analiza a su vez los procesos de democratización y modernización que transformaron el campo cultural en la región entre 1910 y 1940.

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  Changing Seasons: A Language Arts Curriculum for Healthy Aging

  Denise Calhoun

  Effective communication enhances quality of life. In Changing Seasons: A Language Arts Curriculum for Healthy Aging,Denise Calhoun provides a language-based, interdisciplinary program to help older adults improve their communication skills. Each activity reveals new, creative, and fun ways to get individuals to speak, think, write, engage with others, and use their imagination. As the activities promote meaningful interactions and the creation of a stimulating environment, Changing Seasons underscores the importance of sustaining quality of life as we and those we love age.

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  Doing Business in America: A Jewish History

  Hasia Diner

  American and Jewish historians have long shied away from the topic of Jews and business. Avoidance patterns grew in part from old, often negative stereotypes that linked Jews with money, and the perceived ease and regularity with which they found success with money, condemning Jews for their desires for wealth and their proclivities for turning a profit. A new, dauntless generation of historians, however, realizes that Jewish business has had and continues to have a profound impact on American culture and development, and patterns of immigrant Jewish exploration of business opportunities reflect internal, communal, Jewish-cultural structures and their relationship to the larger non-Jewish world. As such, they see the subject rightly as a vital and underexplored area of study.

  Doing Business in America: A Jewish History, edited by Hasia R. Diner, rises to the challenge of taking on the long-unspoken taboo subject, comprising leading scholars and exploring an array of key topics in this important and growing area of research.

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  Hombres en movimiento: Masculinidades españolas en los exilios y emigraciones, 1939–1999

  Iker González-Allende

  Hombres en movimiento: Masculinidades españolas en los exilios y emigraciones, 1939–1999, de Iker González-Allende, es el primer estudio detallado de cómo el exilio y la emigración influyen en la masculinidad de los hombres españoles, tanto heterosexuales como homosexuales, que se ven obligados a abandonar su país. En el libro, González-Allende analiza la literatura producida por escritores españoles que desde 1939 hasta finales del siglo XX han experimentado el exilio o la emigración, cubriendo tres momentos históricos: el largo exilio republicano como consecuencia de la Guerra Civil Española (1936–1939), la emigración a Europa durante la década de 1960 debido a la crisis económica en España y la reciente emigración de intelectuales a los Estados Unidos a finales del siglo XX. Revelando experiencias recurrentes de aislamiento, inseguridad, discriminación y feminización en el país de acogida, González-Allende sostiene que el exilio y la emigración causan un sentido de crisis, impotencia e inestabilidad en la masculinidad de los hombres desplazados. El autor también examina como tendencia compensatoria que el exilio y la emigración pueden ofrecer a estos hombres una mayor sensación de libertad y una mejora de su situación económica. Cada uno de los siete capítulos analiza una variedad diferente de las masculinidades en el exilio o la emigración: el adolescente, el hombre en crisis, el hombre ocioso, el hombre que retorna a España, el hombre trabajador, el hombre onanista y el hombre académico. Los autores estudiados son asimismo diversos: Luis de Castresana, Juan José Domenchina, Juan Gil-Albert, Max Aub, Francisco Ayala, Patricio Chamizo, Víctor Canicio, Terenci Moix, Antonio Muñoz Molina y Javier Cercas.

  Men in Motion: Spanish Masculinities in Exiles and Emigrations, 1939–1999 by Iker González-Allende delivers the first sustained study of how the Spanish masculine identity, of both homosexual and heterosexual men, is impacted when men are compelled to leave their country. In it, González-Allende examines the literary output of Spanish male authors over three periods of emigration and exile: the long Republican exile from Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the emigration to Europe during the Spanish economic crisis of the 1960s, and the recent period of emigration of intellectuals to the US through the end of the twentieth century. Revealing and unpacking recurring patterns of isolation, insecurity, discrimination, and feminization in the host country, González-Allende argues that exile and emigration cause a crisis of powerlessness that can have a destabilizing effect on one’s masculinity. González-Allende also examines a countervailing trend among Spanish exiles and émigrés of these periods; that from the same crisis some achieve a greater sense of freedom and improve their socioeconomic standing. Each of the seven chapters analyzes a different Spanish male exile or émigré: the adolescent, the man at a crossroad, the idle man, the returning man, the working man, the onanist, and the academician. Works studied are likewise from a range of authors: Luis de Castresana, Juan José Domenchina, Juan Gil-Albert, Max Aub, Francisco Ayala, Patricio Chamizo, Víctor Canicio, Terenci Moix, Antonio Muñoz Molina, and Javier Cercas.

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  Of Levinas and Shakespeare: "To See Another Thus"

  Sandor Goodhart, Moshe Gold, and Kent Lehnhof

  Scholars have used Levinas as a lens through which to view many authors and texts, fields of endeavor, and works of art. Yet no book-length work or dedicated volume has brought this thoughtful lens to bear in a sustained discussion of the works of Shakespeare. It should not surprise anyone that Levinas identified his own thinking as Shakespearean. "The play’s the thing" for both, or put differently, the observation of intersubjectivity is. What may surprise and indeed delight all learned readers is to consider what we might yet gain from considering each in light of the other.

  Comprising leading scholars in philosophy and literature, Of Levinas and Shakespeare: "To See Another Thus" is the first book-length work to treat both great thinkers. Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth dominate the discussion; however, essays also address Cymbeline, The Merchant of Venice, and even poetry, such as Venus and Adonis. Volume editors planned and contributors deliver a thorough treatment from multiple perspectives, yet none intends this volume to be the last word on the subject; rather, they would have it be a provocation to further discussion, an enticement for richer enjoyment, and an invitation for deeper contemplation of Levinas and Shakespeare.

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  Is Judaism Democratic? Reflections from Theory and Practice Throughout the Ages

  Leonard J. Greenspoon

  As government by the people, democracy has always had its proponents as well as opponents. What forms of government have Jewish leaders, both with and without actual political power, favored? Not surprisingly, many options have been offered theoretically and in practice. Perhaps more surprisingly, democracy has been at the heart of most systems of governance. Biblical Israel was largely a monarchy, but many writers of the Bible were critical of the excesses that almost always arise when human kings take charge: the general populace loses its freedom. In rabbinic Judaism, the majority ruled, and many principles that support modern democratic institutions have their basis in interpretations offered by the classical rabbis. This is true even though rabbinic Jews did not govern democratically. When Jews did have some degree of self-governance, democratic principles and institutions were often upheld. At the same time, so most communal leaders insisted, God—the ultimate judge—ultimately judges everything and everyone. Modern Israel provides the first instance of an independent Jewish nation since the Hasmonean monarchy of the second and first centuries BCE. On an almost daily basis, common features uniting democracy and Judaism, as well as flash point of controversy, are highlighted there.

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  Mortar Board: A Century of Scholars, Chosen for Leadership, United to Serve

  Susan R. Komives, Virginia N. Gordon, and Jane A. Hamblin 3070072

  Mortar Board National College Senior Honor Society has a unique place in the history of higher education and indeed in the history of the United States. Founded in 1918, with inaugural chapters at Cornell University, University of Michigan, The Ohio State University, and Swarthmore College, Mortar Board was the first national organization to honor senior college women. Before women had the right to vote in the United States, Mortar Board members were leading their society to prominence across the country. In a real sense, Mortar Board grew up with the US higher education system and grew in step with women’s emergence as recognized leaders nationally. As a result, the history of Mortar Board members and their accomplishments provides readers with a unique window into women’s issues on campuses during the twentieth century, the importance of college student organizations to the quality of student life, and the effect of world events on American college students. Accepting men into its ranks since 1975, Mortar Board has grown into a comprehensive national college senior honor society comprised of students who exemplify Mortar Board’s founding Ideals of scholarship, leadership, and service. In preparation for its centennial, volunteers poured over fifty thousand photos, memos, and files to prepare its first-ever history. The result is a beautifully accurate, sometimes humorous, and always enlightening portrayal of college life in the United States over the last one hundred years.

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  Borders, Territories, and Ethics: Hebrew Literature in the Shadow of the Intifada

  Adia Mendelson-Maoz

  Borders, Territories, and Ethics: Hebrew Literature in the Shadow of the Intifada by Adia Mendelson-Maoz presents a new perspective on the multifaceted relations between ideologies, space, and ethics manifested in contemporary Hebrew literature dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the occupation. In this volume, Mendelson-Maoz analyzes Israeli prose written between 1987 and 2007, relating mainly to the first and second intifadas, written by well-known authors such as Yehoshua, Grossman, Matalon, Castel-Bloom, Govrin, Kravitz, and Levy. Mendelson-Maoz raises critical questions regarding militarism, humanism, the nature of the State of Israel as a democracy, national identity and its borders, soldiers as moral individuals, the nature of Zionist education, the acknowledgment of the Other, and the sovereignty of the subject. She discusses these issues within two frameworks. The first draws on theories of ethics in the humanist tradition and its critical extensions, especially by Levinas. The second applies theories of space, and in particular deterritorialization as put forward by Deleuze and Guattari and their successors. Overall this volume provides an innovative theoretical analysis of the collage of voices and artistic directions in contemporary Israeli prose written in times of political and cultural debate on the occupation and its intifadas.

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  The Quest for Redemption: Central European Jewish Thought in Joseph Roth's Works

  Rares G. Piloiu

  Quest for Redemption: Central European Jewish Thought in Joseph Roth's Works by Rares Piloiu fills an important gap in Roth scholarship, placing Roth’s major works of fiction for the first time in the context of a generational interest in religious redemption among the Jewish intellectuals of Central Europe. In it, Piloiu argues that Roth’s challenging, often contradictory and ambivalent literary output is the result of an attempt to recast moral, political, and historical realities of an empirically observable world in a new, religiously transfigured reality through the medium of literature. This diegetic recasting of phenomenological encounters with the real is an expression of Roth’s belief that, since the self and the world are in a continuing state of crisis, issuing from their separation in modernity, a restoration of their unity is necessary to redeem the historical existence of individuals and communities alike. Piloiu notes, however, that Roth’s enterprise in this is not unique to his work, but rather is shared by an entire generation of Central European Jewish intellectuals. This generation, disillusioned by modernity’s excessive secularism, rationalism, and nationalism, sought a radical solution in the revival of mystical religious traditions—above all, in the Judaic idea of messianic redemption. Their use of the Chasidic notion of redemption was highly original in that it stripped the notion of its original theological meaning and applied it to the secular experience of reality. As a result, Roth’s Quest for Redemption is a quest for a salvation of the individual not outside, but within, history.

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  Perspectives on Science and Culture

  Kris Rutten, Stefaan Blancke, and Ronald Soetaert

  Edited by Kris Rutten, Stefaan Blancke, and Ronald Soetaert, Perspectives on Science and Culture explores the intersection between scientific understanding and cultural representation from an interdisciplinary perspective. Contributors to the volume analyze representations of science and scientific discourse from the perspectives of rhetorical criticism, comparative cultural studies, narratology, educational studies, discourse analysis, naturalized epistemology, and the cognitive sciences. The main objective of the volume is to explore how particular cognitive predispositions and cultural representations both shape and distort the public debate about scientific controversies, the teaching and learning of science, and the development of science itself. The theoretical background of the articles in the volume integrates C. P. Snow's concept of the two cultures (science and the humanities) and Jerome Bruner's confrontation between narrative and logico-scientific modes of thinking (i.e., the cognitive and the evolutionary approaches to human cognition). The intellectual trajectory of the volume is located in comparative cultural studies, a framework with paradigms of the empirical and systems approaches whereby attention is paid to the interrelationships between science and culture.

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  Universities in Imperial Austria 1848–1918: A Social History of a Multilingual Space

  Jan Surman

  Combining history of science and a history of universities with the new imperial history, Universities in Imperial Austria 1848–1918: A Social History of a Multilingual Space by Jan Surman analyzes the practice of scholarly migration and its lasting influence on the intellectual output in the Austrian part of the Habsburg Empire.

  The Habsburg Empire and its successor states were home to developments that shaped Central Europe's scholarship well into the twentieth century. Universities became centers of both state- and nation-building, as well as of confessional resistance, placing scholars if not in conflict, then certainly at odds with the neutral international orientation of academe.

  By going beyond national narratives, Surman reveals the Empire as a state with institutions divided by language but united by legislation, practices, and other influences. Such an approach allows readers a better view to how scholars turned gradually away from state-centric discourse to form distinct language communities after 1867; these influences affected scholarship, and by examining the scholarly record, Surman tracks the turn.

  Drawing on archives in Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Ukraine, Surman analyzes the careers of several thousand scholars from the faculties of philosophy and medicine of a number of Habsburg universities, thus covering various moments in the history of the Empire for the widest view. Universities in Imperial Austria 1848–1918 focuses on the tension between the political and linguistic spaces scholars occupied and shows that this tension did not lead to a gradual dissolution of the monarchy’s academia, but rather to an ongoing development of new strategies to cope with the cultural and linguistic multitude.

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  Teaching Information Literacy and Writing Studies: Volume 1, First Year Composition Courses

  Grace Veach

  This volume, edited by Grace Veach, explores leading approaches to foregrounding information literacy in first-year college writing courses. Chapters describe cross-disciplinary efforts underway across higher education, as well as innovative approaches of both writing professors and librarians in the classroom. This seminal work unpacks the disciplinary implications for information literacy and writing studies as they encounter one another in theory and practice, in the post-information age. Topics include: reading and writing through the lens of information literacy, curriculum design, specific writing tasks, transfer, and assessment.

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  Intellectual Philanthropy: The Seduction of the Masses

  Aurélie Vialette

  Intellectual Philanthropy: The Seduction of the Masses by Aurélie Vialette examines the practice of philanthropy in modern Spain. Through detailed studies of popular music, collective readings, dramas, working-class manuals, and fiction, Vialette reveals how depictions of urban philanthropic activities can inform our understanding of interactions in the economic, cultural, religious, and educational spheres, class power dynamics, and gender roles in urban Spanish society.

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  Leaders of the Pack: Women and the Future of Veterinary Medicine

  Julie Kumble and Donald F. Smith

  Veterinary medicine has undergone sweeping changes in the last few decades. Women now account for 55 percent of the active veterinarians in the field, and nearly 80 percent of veterinary students are women. However, average salaries have dropped as this shift has occurred, and even with women in the vast majority, only 25 percent of leadership roles are held by women.

  These trends point to gender-based inequality that veterinary medicine, a profession that tilts so heavily toward women, is struggling to address. How will the profession respond? What will this mean for our students and schools? What will it mean for our pets entrusted to veterinarian care? Who has succeeded in these situations? Who is taking action to lead change? What can we learn from them to lead the pack in our lives?

  Leaders of the Pack, by Julie Kumble and Dr. Donald Smith, explores key themes in leadership and highlights women in veterinary medicine whose stories embody those themes. In it, Kumble and Smith cull over three years of interviews to profile a wide variety of women as they share triumphs and challenges, lucky as well as tough breaks, and the sound advice and words that inspired them to take their careers in unanticipated directions. By sharing unique stories that illuminate different paths to leadership and reflecting on best practices through commentary and research, Leaders of the Pack will allow more female leaders to create wider pathways to the top of their profession.

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  The Writers, Artists, Singers, and Musicians of the National Hungarian Jewish Cultural Association (OMIKE), 1939–1944

  Frederick Bondy

  In May 1938, Hungary passed anti-Semitic laws causing hundreds of Jewish artists to lose their jobs. In response, Budapest’s Jewish community leaders organized an Artistic Enterprise under the aegis of OMIKE Országos Magyar Izraelita Közművelődési Egyesület (Hungarian Jewish Education Association) to provide employment and livelihood for actors, singers, musicians, conductors, composers, writers, playwrights, painters, graphic artists, and sculptors.

  Between 1939 and 1944, activities were centered in Goldmark Hall beside the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest. Hundreds of artists from all over Hungary took part in about one thousand performances, including plays, concerts, cabaret, ballet, operas, and operettas. These performances appealed to the highly cultured Budapest Jewish community, ever desirous of high-caliber events, particularly under oppressive conditions of the time. Art exhibitions also were held for painters, graphic artists, and sculptors to sell their creations.

  Lévai’s 1943 book (with new, additional chapters by noted historians and musicians) is the core of this expanded edition and provides interviews with individual artists who recall their early lives and circumstances that led them to join the Artistic Enterprise. The book records the technical functioning, structure, and operation of this remarkable theater and concert venue. It provides fascinating details about those who worked behind the scenes: répétiteurs, hair stylists, and personnel involved with costumes, lighting, and scenery. Because the stage was small, clever choreographic and scenery improvisation had to be made, and the stagehands were clearly up to the task. Since these artists were not allowed to perform before the general public or advertise with posters on the streets, the book describes special means devised to overcome these difficulties and bring Jewish audiences into the theater in large numbers.

  Lastly, the book carries the theater’s story up to Sunday morning, March 19, 1944, a day of infamy, when the German army marched into Hungary.

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  From Shtetl to Stardom: Jews and Hollywood

  Vincent Brook and Michael Renov

  The outsized influence of Jews in American entertainment from the early days of Hollywood to the present has proved an endlessly fascinating and controversial topic, for Jews and non-Jews alike. From Shtetl to Stardom: Jews and Hollywood takes an exciting and innovative approach to this rich and complex material. Exploring the subject from a scholarly perspective as well as up close and personal, the book combines historical and theoretical analysis by leading academics in the field with inside information from prominent entertainment professionals. Essays range from Vincent Brook’s survey of the stubbornly persistent canard of Jewish industry “control” to Lawrence Baron and Joel Rosenberg’s panel presentations on the recent brouhaha over Ben Urwand’s book alleging collaboration between Hollywood and Hitler. Case studies by Howard Rodman and Joshua Louis Moss examine a key Coen brothers film, A Serious Man (Rodman), and Jill Soloway’s groundbreaking television series, Transparent (Moss). Jeffrey Shandler and Shaina Hamermann train their respective lenses on popular satirical comedians of yesteryear (Allan Sherman) and those currently all the rage (Amy Schumer, Lena Dunham, and Sarah Silverman). David Isaacs relates his years of agony and hilarity in the television comedy writers’ room, and interviews include in-depth discussions by Ross Melnick with Laemmle Theatres owner Greg Laemmle (relative of Universal Studios founder Carl Laemmle) and by Michael Renov with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner. In all, From Shtetl to Stardom offers a uniquely multifaceted, multimediated, and up-to-the-minute account of the remarkable role Jews have played over the centuries and ongoing in American popular culture.

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  Advances in Research Using the C-SPAN Archives

  Robert X. Browning

  This book is a guide to the latest research using the C-SPAN Archives. In this book, nine authors present original work using the video archives to study presidential debates, public opinion and Congress, analysis of the Violence Against Women Act and the Great Lakes freshwater legislation, as well as President Clinton’s grand jury testimony. The C-SPAN Archives contain over 220,000 hours of first run digital video of the nation’s public affairs record. These and other essays serve as guides for scholars who want to explore the research potential of this robust public policy and communications resource.

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  Mishpachah: The Jewish Family in Tradition and in Transition

  Leonard J. Greenspoon

  Dictionary definitions of the term mishpachah are seemingly straightforward: “A Jewish family or social unit including close and distant relatives—sometimes also close friends.” As accurate as such definitions are, they fail to capture the diversity and vitality of real, flesh-and-blood Jewish families.

  Families have been part of Jewish life for as long as there have been Jews. It is useful to recall that the family is the basic narrative building block of the stories in the biblical book of Genesis, which can be interpreted in the light of ancient literary traditions, archaeological discoveries, and rabbinic exegesis. Rabbinic literature also is filled with discussions about interactions, rancorous as well as amicable, between parents and among siblings. Sometimes harmony characterizes relations between the parent and the child; as often, alas, there is conflict. The rabbis, always aware of the realities of life, chide and advise as best they can. For the modern period, the changing roles of males and females in society at large have contributed to differing expectations as to their roles within the family. The relative increase in the number of adopted children, from both Jewish and non-Jewish backgrounds, and more recently, the shifting reality of assisted reproductive technologies and the possibility of cloning human embryos, all raise significant moral and theological questions that require serious consideration.

  Through the studies brought together in this volume, more than a dozen scholars look at the Jewish family in wide variety of social, historical, religious, and geographical contexts. In the process, they explore both diverse and common features in the past and present, and they chart possible courses for Jewish families in the future.