Tough Questions Jews Ask 2/E

Tough Questions Jews Ask 2/E PDF

Author: Rabbi Edward Feinstein

Publisher: Turner Publishing Company

Published: 2012-01-06

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 1580236073

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What your rabbi probably has never told you, but could—if you'd only ask. "Every day I wonder if God is real, if the Torah is true. Every day I wonder why I’m a Jew. But that’s part of being Jewish. In the Torah, we’re called Yisrael—the ones who wrestle with God. Wrestling, asking, wondering, searching is just what God wants us to do! God loves good questions. Now tell me, what are your questions?" —from Chapter 1 In Judaism we’re allowed to ask questions. We are invited to ask them. But for young people, it often feels as if no one is willing to take tough questions about religion, ourselves, and the world seriously. This updated and expanded new edition of Tough Questions Jews Ask turns that all around. With honesty, humor and respect, Rabbi Edward Feinstein tackles topics as diverse as: Why Does God Let Terrible Things Happen? What Is God Anyway? If I Pray for Something, Will I get It? What’s the meaning of life? Is that a dumb question? Why Does Religion Need So Many Rules? Why Be Jewish? With insight and wisdom—and without pretending to have all the answers—Rabbi Feinstein encourages young people to make sense of the Jewish tradition by wrestling with what we don’t understand.

Empowered Judaism

Empowered Judaism PDF

Author: Rabbi Elie Kaunfer

Publisher: Turner Publishing Company

Published: 2012-12-16

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1580235697

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The inside story and practical lessons from one of the most exciting developments in contemporary Judaism. Part description and part prescription, Empowered Judaism is a manifesto for transforming the way Jews pray andmore broadlyfor building vibrant Jewish communities. [It] represents the latest chapter in [an] uplifting history of religious creativity. This is a book that every Jewish leader will want to read and every serious Jew will want to contemplate. from the Foreword by Prof. Jonathan D. Sarna Why have thousands of young Jews, otherwise unengaged with formal Jewish life, started more than sixty innovative prayer communities across the United States? What crucial insights can these grassroots communities provide for all of us? Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, one of the leaders of this revolutionary phenomenon, offers refreshingly new analyses of the age-old question of how to build strong Jewish community. He explores the independent minyan movement and the lessons it has to teach about prayer, community organizing and volunteer leadership, and its implications for contemporary struggles in American Judaism. Along with describing the growth of independent minyanim across the country, he examines: The roles of liturgy, space, music and youth in this new approach to prayer Lessons to be learned from the concept of immersive, intensive Jewish learning in an egalitarian context Jewish values in which we must invest to achieve a vibrant, robust American Jewish landscape for the twenty-first century

Down Home

Down Home PDF

Author: Leonard Rogoff

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2010-04-15

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0807895997

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A sweeping chronicle of Jewish life in the Tar Heel State from colonial times to the present, this beautifully illustrated volume incorporates oral histories, original historical documents, and profiles of fascinating individuals. The first comprehensive social history of its kind, Down Home demonstrates that the story of North Carolina Jews is attuned to the national story of immigrant acculturation but has a southern twist. Keeping in mind the larger southern, American, and Jewish contexts, Leonard Rogoff considers how the North Carolina Jewish experience differs from that of Jews in other southern states. He explores how Jews very often settled in North Carolina's small towns, rather than in its large cities, and he documents the reach and vitality of Jewish North Carolinians' participation in building the New South and the Sunbelt. Many North Carolina Jews were among those at the forefront of a changing South, Rogoff argues, and their experiences challenge stereotypes of a society that was agrarian and Protestant. More than 125 historic and contemporary photographs complement Rogoff's engaging epic, providing a visual panorama of Jewish social, cultural, economic, and religious life in North Carolina. This volume is a treasure to share and to keep. Published in association with the Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina, Down Home is part of a larger documentary project of the same name that will include a film and a traveling museum exhibition, to be launched in June 2010.

Building a Public Judaism

Building a Public Judaism PDF

Author: Saskia Coenen Snyder

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-01-08

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0674067495

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Coenen Snyder considers what the architecture and construction of nineteenth-century European synagogues reveal about the social progress of modern European Jews. The process of claiming a Jewish space was a marker of acculturation but not full acceptance, she argues. The new edifices, even if spectacular, revealed the limits of Jewish integration.

Building Jewish Life

Building Jewish Life PDF

Author: Joel Lurie Grishaver

Publisher: Torah Aura Productions

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13: 9780933873155

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In this Building Jewish Life volume children learn about the story of Hanukkah and its customs. A charming and insightful retelling of the story of the Macabees with its hopeful ending.

The Thinking Jewish Teenager's Guide to Life

The Thinking Jewish Teenager's Guide to Life PDF

Author: Akiva Tatz

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781568711751

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This book powerfully explains some of the deepest concepts in Judaism, demonstrating how those ideas and principles can, and should, guide decisions, relationships and growth to real maturity. There's no 'talking down' here; there's just straight inspiration, depth, and many answers.

Building Jewish in the Roman East

Building Jewish in the Roman East PDF

Author: Peter Richardson

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2005-02-01

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 9047406508

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Archaeology has unearthed the glories of ancient Jewish buildings throughout the Mediterranean. But what has remained shrouded is what these buildings meant. "Building Jewish" first surveys the architecture of small rural villages in the Galilee in the early Roman period before examining the development of synagogues as "Jewish associations." Finally, "Building Jewish" explores Jerusalem's flurry of building activity under Herod the Great in the first century BCE. Richardson's careful work not only documents the culture that forms the background to any study of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity, but he also succeeds in demonstrating how architecture itself, like a text, conveys meaning and thus directly illuminates daily life and religious thought and practice in the ancient world.