101 Things Everyone Should Know about Judaism: Beliefs, Practices, Customs, and Traditions

by Richard D. Bank and Janes B. Wiggins

Book Overview

What's the difference between Reform and Orthodox Judaism? What does it mean to keep kosher? And what are mizvot ? Compact and comprehensive, 101 Things Everyone Should Know about Judaism touches on... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1593373279
• ISBN13: 9781593373276
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: Adams Media Corporation
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Better than the "idiots guides"

This is a nice pithy book filled with a surprizing amount of information for it's small size. It's easy to read and its chapters are short and to the point. This book does describe the various branches of Judaism (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist), however, it's point of view tends strongly towards the Conservative/Orthodox. It also tends to view the bible fairly literally, and without an apparent appreciation of the bible's historical context. For example, this book might lead one to assume that the religion of ancient Israel is the essentially the same as modern Judaism. Very few scholars would agree with this assumption. This book also claims Judaism is categorically opposed to interfaith marriages and says nothing about converts or conversions. This is too bad, considering that about half of the Jews marry non-Jews with many bringing up their families Jewish, and that within liberal Judaism there is a large and growing number of converts coming to Judaism. On the whole, the book contains a good deal of information, but one comes away from the book without an appreciation of the deep complexity and beauty of Judaism. It seems to present Judaism as a static collection of holidays, traditions, laws and customs. This is really too bad, because Judaism is so much more.