AJS Review • Collected Studies
September 2011 – March 2012

Friedenreich, David and Miriam Goldstein. Beyond Religious Borders: Interaction and Intellectual Exchange in the Medieval Islamic World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012; 221 pp.

Contents: Miriam Goldstein: “Introduction;” Haggai Ben-Shammai: “Observations on the Beginnings of Judeo-Arabic Civilization;” Milka Levy-Rubin: “Shurūt 'Umar: From Early Harbingers to Systematic Enforcement;” Sarah Stroumsa: “Thinkers of "This Peninsula": Toward an Integrative Approach to the Study of Philosophy in al-Andalus;” Sagit Butbul: “Translations in Contact: Early Judeo-Arabic and Syriac Biblical Translations;” Talya Fishman: “Claims About the Mishna in the Epistle of Sherira Gaon: Islamic Theology and Jewish History;” Charles H. Manekin: “Maimonides and the Arabic Aristotelian Tradition of Epistemology;” Jonathan P. Decter: “Ibrāhim Ibn al-Fakhkhār al-Yahūdi: An Arabic Poet and Diplomat in Castile and the Maghrib;” Daniel J. Lasker: “The Impact of Interreligious Polemic on Medieval Philosophy;” Gad Freudenthal: “Arabic into Hebrew: The Emergence of the Translation Movement in Twelfth-Century Provence and Jewish-Christian Polemic;” David M. Freidenreich: “Fusion Cooking in an Islamic Milieu: Jewish and Christian Jurists on Food Associated with Foreigners.”

Halevi-Wise, Yael, ed. Sephardism: Spanish Jewish History and the Modern Literary Imagination. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012; xvi, 360 pp.

Contents: Yael Halevi-Wise: “Introduction: Through the Prism of Sepharad: Modern Nationalism, Literary History, and the Impact of the Sephardic Experience;” Ismar Schorsch: “The Myth of Sephardic Supremacy in Nineteenth-Century Germany;” Michael Ragussis: “Writing Spanish History in Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Inquisition and “the Secret Race’;” Diana R. Hallman: “‘Rachel, ou l’Auto-da-fé”: Representations of Jews and the Inquisition in the French Grand Opera La Juive (1835);” Jonathan Skolnik: “The Strange Career of the Abarbanels from Heine to the Holocaust;” Edna Aizenberg: “Sephardim and Neo-Sephardim in Latin American Literature;” Yael Halevi-Wise: “The Life and Times of the Picaro-Converso from Spain to Latin America;” Stacy N. Beckwith: “Facing Sepharad, Facing Israel and Spain: Yehuda Burla and Antonio Gala's Janus Profiles of National Reconstitution;” Bernard Horn: “Sephardic Identity and Its Discontents: The Novels of A. B. Yehoshua;” Judith Roumani: “‘Le Juif Espagnol’: The Idea of Sepharad among Colonial and Postcolonial Francophone Jewish Writers;” Dalia Kandiyoti: “Sephardism in Latina Literature;” Efraim Sicher: “Sir Salman Rushdie Sails for India and Rediscovers Spain: Postmodern Constructions of Sepharad;” Yael Halevi-Wise: “Postscript: Rebecca Goldstein's Spinoza.”

Hart, Mictchell, ed. Jews & Race: Writings on Identity & Difference, 1880-1940. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2011; xxxix, 281 pp.

Contents: Mitchell B. Hart: "Jews and Race: An Introductory Essay;" Joseph Jacobs: "Racial Characteristics of Modern Jews;" Isidore Loeb: "Reflections on the Jews;" Maurice Fishberg: "Preface from Jews, Race, and Environment;" Fritz Kahn: "Jewish Race;" Arthur Ruppin: "On the Origins and Race of the Jews;" Edward Goldstein: "Introduction to the Anthropological Study of the Jews;" Joseph Jacobs: "Entry on ‘Anthropology’ from The Jewish Encyclopedia;" J. M. Judt: "The Jews as a Race;" Richard Weinberg: "The Brain Weight of Jews;" Samuel Weissenberg: "The Jewish Racial Problem;" Arkadius Elkind: "Anthropological Research on the Russian-Polish Jews, and the Value of This Research for the Anthropology of the Jews in General;" Sigmund Feist: "Are the Jews a Race?;" Maurice Fishberg: "The Comparative Pathology of the Jews;" Felix Theilhaber: "Contributions to the Jewish Racial Question;" Redcliffe N. Salaman: "Heredity and the Jew;" Abraham Myerson: "The 'Nervousness' of the Jew;" Noel Haltrecht: "The Problem of Tuberculosis among the Jews: A Racial and Socio-Pathological Study;" Rudolf Wassermann: "Is the Criminality of the Jews Racial Criminality?;" Maurice Fishberg: "Jews, Race, and Environment;" Arthur Ruppin: "Successes of the Jews in Capitalistic Enterprise;" Elias Auerbach: "The Jewish Racial Question;" Arthur Ruppin: "The Mixed Marriage;" Ignaz Zollschan"The Significance of the Mixed Marriage;" Maurice Fishberg: "Intermarriage between Jews and Christians;" Salomon Reinach: "The So-Called Jewish Race;" Alfred Nossig: "The Chosenness of the Jews in the Light of Biology;" Leo Sofer: "To Which Race Did Jesus Belong?;" Ignaz Zollschan: "Foreword and Introduction from The Racial Problem, with Particular Attention Paid to the Theoretical Foundations of the Jewish Racial Question;" Testimony of the American Jewish Committee and Union of American Hebrew Congregations before the United States Immigration Committee: "There Is No Jewish Race!;" Maurice Fishberg: "Assimilation versus Zionism;" Unsigned editorial from Die Welt: "The Racial Identity of the Jews;" Unsigned editorial from Die Welt: "On the Jewish Racial Question;" Robert Weltsch: "Concerning Racial Theory;" Moritz Goldstein: "The Jewish Racial Problem;" Chaim Zhitlowsky: "Jews and Jewishness."

Lloyd, Vincent, ed. Race and Political Theology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012; viii, 254 pp.

Contents: Vincent Lloyd: “Introduction;” Vincent Pecora: “Political Theology and the Case of Otto Brunner;” Cristoph Schmidt: “‘The Politicization of Heaven’: Wilhelm Stapel's Political Theology of Nationalist Sovereignty;” Kameron Carter: “Between W. E. B. Du Bois and Karl Barth: The Problem of Modern Political Theology;” Jonathon Kahn: “There Are No Clean Souls: The Promise and Perils of Political Theology in The Souls of Black Folk: Corey Walker: “The Race for Theology: Toward a Critical Political Theology of Freedom;” Gil Anidjar: “The Enemy's Two Bodies (Political Theology Too);” Daniel Boyarin: “The Double Mark of the Male Muslim: Eracing Othello;” Bonnie Honig: “Between Sacred and Secular? Michael Walzer's Exodus Story;” Martin Land & Jonathan Boyarin: “The State between Race and Religion: A Conversation;” George Shulman: “From Political Theology to Vernacular Prophecy: Rethinking Redemption.”