A Concise Guide to Judaism: History, Practice, Faith

by Roy A. Rosenberg

Book Overview

For almost 4,000 years, Judaism has exerted a powerful influence on thought and culture throughout the world. This readable, authoritative look at this faith from its beginnings to its practice in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0452011361
• ISBN13: 9780452011366
• Release Date: November 1994
• Publisher: Plume Books
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

An outstanding introduction, sadly out-of-print

It might be futile and meaningless to write a review on an out-of-print book. But I had to respond to the indefensible critique by Mr. Silver in the Library Journal review excerpted above. For the record, I am a college teacher; the tradition of Judaism, broadly considered, was one of my major fields of study in graduate school. This is the best, most succinct introduction to Judaism I have ever used. It restates complex judgments of scholarship in simple language. I do not understand Mr. Silver's complaint about organization: it is a straightforward historical one, the best one to use in introducing Judaism. After an introductory chapter, he looks at *Ancient Israel *The Hebrew Scriptures (their basic content, their later use in the tradition) *The Development of Judaism (distinct from ancient Israel) *The Rabbinic Writings (the development of the Talmudim) *Philosophy and Mysticism (both of which developed after the rabbinic tradition) *Modern Judaism *The Jewish Household (Prayer, Sabbath, Kosher, etc.) *the Calendar and Holy Days --A preeminently coherent presentation. He complains about two inaccuracies: monotheism and Rosenzweig. I agree that Rabbi Rosenberg's presentation of the latter is not very insightful or coherent, but that would not make any difference to the typical user or reader of such a text as this. I reread the pages having to do with monotheism, I simply don't see what he was objecting to, unless it be a moderate use of the historical-critical method in explaining how monotheism came about. Again, Rabbi Rosenberg's explanation, although necessarily condensed and elliptical in referring to the salient issues, is still defensible today. I very much wish it was back in print.