AJS Review • Books Received
Books Received September 2011 – March 2012

Abrams, Nathan. The New Jew in Film: Exploring Jewishness and Judaism in Contemporary Cinema. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012; x, 258 pp.

Adwan, Sami, Dan Bar-On, and Eyal Naveh. Side By Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine. New York: Peace Research Institute in the Middle East, 2012; xviii, 398 pp.

Applebaum, Anne, ed. Gulag Voices: An Anthology. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011; xv, 195 pp.Aron-Beller, Katherine. Jews on Trial: The Papal Inquisition in Modena, 1598-1638. New York: Manchester University Press, 2011; xii, 278 pp.

Bar-On, Mordechai. Moshe Dayan: Israel’s Controversial Hero. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012;xii, 237 pp.

Baskin, Judith. The Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism & Jewish Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011; xlvii, 716 pp.

Bildstein, Gerald. Society and Self: On the Writings of Rabbi Joseph S. Soloveitchik. New York: Orthodox Union Press and KTAV; 155 pp.

Borovaya, Olga. Modern Ladino Culture: Press, Belles Lettres, and Theater in the Late Ottoman Empire. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012; x, 284 pp.

Boyarin, Daniel. The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ. New York: The New Press, 2012; xvii, 200 pp.

Briggman, Anthony. Irenaeus of Lyons and the Theology of the Holy Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; xv, 247 pp.

Budnitskii, Oleg. Russian Jews Between the Reds and White, 1917-1920. Translated by Timothy Portice. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012; x, 508 pp.

Carasik, Michael. The Commentator’s Bible JPS Miqra’ot Gedalot: Numbers. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 2011; xviii, 266 pp.

Cohen, Nir. Soldiers, Rebels, and Drifters: Gay Representation in Israeli Cinema. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2012; x, 254 pp.

Conway, David. Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012; xiii, 341 pp.

Davies, Daniel. Method and Metaphysics in Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011; viii, 215 pp.

Davies, Graham. The Schweich Lectures and Biblical Archaeology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011; x, 69 pp.

Dein, Simon. Lubavitcher Messianism: What Really Happens when Prophecy Fails? London: Continuum, 2011; xiii, 178 pp.

Dojc, Yuri and Katya Krausova. Last Folio: Textures of Life in Slovakia. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011; 127 pp.

Donahaye, Jasmine. Whose People?: Wales, Israel, Palestine. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2012; 205 pp.

Ellenson, David and Daniel Gordis. Pledges of Jewish Allegiance: Conversion, Law and Policymaking in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Orthodox Responsa. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012; x, 206 pp.

Eskenazi, Tamara Cohn and Tikva Frymer-Kensky. The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 2011; lxxv, 103 pp.

Fischer, Klaus. Hitler & America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011; vi, 356 pp.

Fisher, Cass. Contemplative Nation: A Philosophical Account of Jewish Theological Language. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012; xi, 301 pp.

Fishman, Talya. Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures. Philadelphia: University o Pennsylvania Press, 2011; 413 pp.

Fraser, Gordon. The Quantum Exodus: Jewish Fugitives, the Atomic Bomb, and the Holocaust. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; 267 pp.

Friedman, Bruce Jay. Lucky Bruce: A Literary Memoir. Ontario: Biblioasis, 2011; 290 pp.

Geller, Jay. The Other Jewish Question: Identifying the Jew and Making Sense of Modernity. New York: Fordham University Press, 2011; xiv, 510 pp.

Geroulanos, Steganos and Todd Meyers. Henri Atlan: Selected Writings on Self-Organization, Philosophy, Bioethics, and Judaism. New York: Fordham University Press, 2011; xvi, 462 pp.

Glazer, Aubrey. A New Physiognomy of Jewish Thinking: Critical Theory after Adorno as Applied to Jewish Thought. London: Continuum, 2011, xvi, 208 pp.

Gleizer, Daniela. Ex exilio incómodo: México y los refugiados judíos. Mexico City: El Colegio de México and Universidad Autónoma Metopolitana, 2011; 321 pp.

Goldberg, Edward. A Jew at the Medici Court: The Letters of Benedetto Blanis Hebreo, 1615-1621. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011; xxi, 328 pp. [In Italian and English]

Goldberg, Jakub and Adam Kaźmierczyk. Seim Czcerech Ziem: Źródła. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Sejmowe, 2011; 472 pp. [In Polish]

Grumberg, Karen. Place and Ideology in Contemporary Hebrew Literature. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011; xiv, 287 pp.

Handelman, Susan. Make Yourself a Teacher: Rabbinic Tales of Mentors and Disciples. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011; xvi, 151 pp.

Henry, Barbara. Rewriting Russia: Jacob Gordin’s Yiddish Drama. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011; xiv, 229 pp.

Himmelfarb, Gertrude. The People of the Book: Philosemitism in England from Cromwell to Churchill. New York: Encounter Books, 2011; 183 pp.

Hoberman, Michael. New Israel / New England: Jews and Puritans in Early America. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011; xiv, 280 pp.

Ibn Ezra, Abraham. Sefer Ha‘ibbur: A Treatise on the Calendar. Translated by Mordecai S. Goodman. Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2011; xvi, 246, 85 pp. [English & Hebrew]

Kallus, Menachem, ed. Pillar of Prayer: Guidance in Contemplative Prayer, Sacred Study, and the Spiritual Life, from the Baal Shem Tov an his Circle. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2011; xxvii, 275, 67 pp. [English & Hebrew]

Katz, Gideon. The Pale God: Israeli Secularism and Spinoza’s Philosophy of Culture. Translated by Miriam Ron and Jacky Feldman. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2011; vi, 214 pp.

Klein, Misha. Kosher Feijoada and Other Paradoxes of Jewish Life in São Paulo. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2012; xiii, 256 pp.

Koenig, Karl. Fragments: Architecture of the Holocaust. Albuquerque, NM: Fresco Fine Art Publications, 2011; 61pp.

Koren, Sharon Faye. Forsaken: The Menstruant in Medieval Jewish Mysticism. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2011; xvii, 286 pp.

Kriger, Diane. Sex Rewarded Sex Punished: A Study in the Status “Female Slave” in Early Jewish Law. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2011; xxiii, 398 pp.

Langer, Ruth. Cursing the Christians?: A History of Birkat Haminim. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; 389 pp.

Lassner, Jacob. Jews, Christians, and the Abode of Islam: Modern Scholarship, Medieval Realities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012; xviii, 312 pp.

Lazar, Hadara. Out of Palestine: The Making of Modern Israel. New York: Atlas & Co., vii, 290 pp.

Lehman, Marjorie. The Ein Yaaqov: Jacob ibn Habib’s Search for Faith in the Talmudic Corpus. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2012; xi, 319 pp.

Levenson, Alan The Making of the Modern Jewish Bible: How Scholars in Germany, Israel, and America Transformed an Ancient Text. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littefield, 2011; xiii, 247 pp.

Liberles, Robert. Jews Welcome Coffee: Tradition and Innovation in Early Modern Germany. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2012; xviii, 169 pp.

Lichenstein, Aharon. Varieties of Jewish Experience. Jersey City, NJ: KTAV, 2011; 334 pp.

Longerich, Peter. Heinrich Himmler. Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe, translators. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012; xviii; 1031 pp.

Longerich, Peter. Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010; xiii, 645 pp.

Lorberbaum, Yair. Disempowered King: Monarchy in Classical Jewish Literature. London: Continuum, 2011; xi, 213 pp.

Magee, Jeffrey. Irving Billing’s American Musical Theater. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; xiii, 394 pp.

Mann, Barbara. Space and Place in Jewish Studies. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012; xii, 196 pp.

Matt, Daniel, tr. The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, vol. VI. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011; xii, 452 pp.

Mintz, Alan. Sanctuary in the Wilderness: A Critical Introduction to American Hebrew Poetry. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012; xviii, 521 pp.

Miron, Guy. The Waning of Emancipation: Jewish History, Memory, and the Rise of Fascism in Germany, France, and Hungary. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011; ix, 308 pp.

Montague, Patrick. Chełmno and the Holocaust: The History of Hitler’s First Death Camp. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2012; xv, 291 pp.

Moore, Megan Bishop and Brad Kelle. Biblical History and Israel’s Past: The Changing Study of the Bible and History. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011; xvii, 518 pp.

Niehoff, Maren. Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011; xii, 222 pp.

Ostriker, Alicia Suskin. The Book of Life: Selected Jewish Poems, 1979-2011. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012; x, 101 pp.

Paloma, Vanessa. The Mountain, the Desert, and the Pomegranate: Stories from Morocco and Beyond. Santa Fe: Gaon Books, 2011; 88 pp.

Porter-Szücs, Brian. Faith and Fatherland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011; ix, 484 pp.

Rappaport, Doreen. Beyond Courage: The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2012; 224 pp.

Renouard, Jean-Pierre. My Stripes Were Earned in Hell: A French Resistance Fighter’s Memoir of Survival in a Nazi Prison Camp. Translated by Mimi Horne. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012; xii, 122 pp.

Rodrigue, Aron and Sarah Abrevaya Stein, eds; Isaac Jerusalmi, tr.

A Jewish Voice from Ottoman Salonica: The Ladino Memoir of Sa’adi Besalel a-Levi. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012; lx, 372 pp.

Rosenkranz, Ze’ev. Einstein Before Israel: Zionist Icon or Iconoclast? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011; xviii, 344 pp.

Rozin, Orit. The Rise of the Individual in 1950s Israel: A Challenge to Collectivism. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2011; xxi, 254 pp.

Ruben, Bruce. Max Lilienthal: The Making of the American Rabbinate. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011; x, 324 pp.

Rubin, Barry. Israel: An Introduction. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012; ix, 340 pp.

Rudin, James. Cushing, Spellman, O’Connor: The Surprising Story of How Three American Cardinals Transformed Catholic-Jewish Relations. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012; x, 147 pp.

Sagi, Avi. To Be a Jew: Joseph Chayim Brenner as a Jewish Existentialist. London: Continuum, 2011; xiii, 219 pp.

Schachter, Allison. Diasporic Modernisms: Hebrew & Yiddish Literature in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012; x, 198 pp.

Schäfer, Peter. The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012; xvii, 349 pp.

Schwartz, Daniel. The First Modern Jew: Spinoza and the History of an Image. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012; xv, 270 pp.

Seeskin, Kenneth. Jewish Messianic Thoughts in an Age of Despair. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012; ix, 222 pp.

Shamah, Moshe. Recalling the Covenant: A Contemporary Commentary on the Five Books of the Torah. Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2011; xxvi, 1165 pp.

Simon-Shoshan, Moshe. Stories of the Law: Narrative Discourse and the Construction of Authority in the Mishnah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; xv, 287 pp.

Sivertsev, Alexi. Judaism and Imperial Ideology in Late Antiquity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011; viii, 247 pp.

Slucki, David. The International Jewish Labor Bund After 1945. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012; xiii, 265 pp.

Solarz, Stephen J. Journeys to War & Peace: A Congressional Memoir. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2011; xiii, 247 pp.

Sorotzkin, David. Orthodoxy and Modern Disciplination: The Production of the Jewish Tradition in Europe in Modern Times. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2011; 443 pp. [In Hebrew]

Srebrnik, Henry Felix. Creating the Chupah: The Zionist Movement and the Drive for Jewish Communal Unity in Canada, 1898-1921. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2011; 268 pp.

Steiner, Richard. A Biblical Transition in the Making: The Evolution and Impact of Saaia Gaon’s Tafsir. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010; x, 188 pp.

Stern, Max. Bible & Music Influences of the Old Testament on Western Music. Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2011; xviii, 568 pp.

Stolfi, R. H. S. Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2011; 520 pp.

Suchoff David. Kafka’s Jewish Languages: The Hidden Openness of Tradition. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012; 266 pp.

Susser, Asher. Israel, Jordan, & Palestine: The Two-State Imperative. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2012; xiii, 297 pp.

Sztokman, Elana Maryles. The Mens’ Section: Orthodox Jewish Men in an Egalitarian World. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2011; xvi, 269 pp.

Tanny, Jarrod. City of Rogues and Schnorrers: Russia’s Jews and the Myths of Old Odessa. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011; xiii, 265 pp.

Temkin, Samuel. Luis de Carvajal: The Origins of Neuvo Renio de León. Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 2011; xvi, 249 pp.

Toro, Sandra. Princes, Popes, and Pirates. Santa Fe, NM: Gaon Books, 2011; 166 pp.

Valler, Shulamit. Sorrow and Distress in the Talmud. Translated by Sharon Blass. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2011; 313 pp.

Vinick, Barbara and Shulamit Reinharz. Today I am a Woman: Stories of Bat Mitzvah around the World. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011; xiii, 279 pp.

Volkov, Shulamit. Walther Rathenau: Weimar’s Fallen Statesman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012; ix, 240 pp.

Vygodskaia, Anna Pavlovna. The Story of a Life: Memoirs of a Young Jewish Woman in the Russian Empire. Translated and edited by Eugene Avrutin and Robert Green. Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2012; xviii, 173 pp.

Weaver, Janice. Harry Houdini: The Legend of the World’s Greatest Escape Artist. Toronto: Madison Press Books, 2011; 49 pp.

Weinfeld, Daniel. The Jackson County War: Reconstruction and Resistance in Post-Civil War Florida. Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2012; xiv, 204 pp.

Wendehorst, Stephan. British Jewry, Zionism, and the Jewish State, 1936-1956. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012; x, 422 pp.

Wilhelm, Cornelia. The Independent Orders of B’nai B’rith and True Sisters: Pioneers of a New Jewish Identity 1843-1914. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011; xi, 361 pp.

Williams, Sophia Orlovsky. Escape into Danger: The True Story of a Kievan Girl in World War II. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012; xiii, 290 pp.