New Books in Jewish Studies

By: Marshall Poe
  • Summary

  • Interview with Scholars of Judaism about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
    New Books Network
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Episodes
  • Ariel Evan Mayse, "Laws of the Spirit: Ritual, Mysticism, and the Commandments in Early Hasidism" (Stanford UP, 2024)
    Mar 16 2025
    In Laws of the Spirit: Ritual, Mysticism, and the Commandments in Early Hasidism (Stanford UP, 2024), Ariel Evan Mayse faces up to an enduring question about the Jewish religious movement known as Hasidism: how did it manage to innovate in the realms of Jewish study and practice with such daring and yet at the same time produce communities ready and willing to subject themselves to the rigors of inherited Jewish law? Exploring the movement from its emergence in the mid-1700s until 1815, Mayse turns to ritual studies rather than history or theology in order to grapple with this enigma, and does so with clarity, insight, and profound ambition. Avi Bernstein-Nahar is founder of 36learningmatters.com, a Jewish adult learning practice. Ariel Evan Mayse is associate professor of religious studies at Stanford University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
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    53 mins
  • Moshe Tzvi Wieder, "Siddur from Its Sources" (Wieder Press, 2023)
    Mar 11 2025
    The author of Siddur from Its Sources has combed through the history of the Jewish prayer book to identify when each prayer was added. The results are presented with captivating visuals, including a digitally enhanced presentation of the first known manuscript for each prayer, some dating back thousands of years! There is intimate access to the source material that is the basis for the modern Jewish prayer book both in the book and the supplemental website. This first volume includes the prayers for the weekday services, including all three daily prayers, special prayers for The New Month and reciting the Shema before going to sleep. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
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    57 mins
  • Ken Frieden, "Travels in Translation: Sea Tales at the Source of Jewish Fiction" (Syracuse UP, 2016)
    Mar 11 2025
    For centuries before its "rebirth" as a spoken language, Hebrew writing was like a magical ship in a bottle that gradually changed design but never voyaged out into the world. Isolated, the ancient Hebrew ship was torpid because the language of the Bible was inadequate to represent modern life in Europe. Early modern speakers of Yiddish and German gave Hebrew the breath of life when they translated dialogues, descriptions, and thought processes from their vernaculars into Hebrew. By narrating tales of pilgrimage and adventure, Jews pulled the ship out of the bottle and sent modern Hebrew into the world. In Travels in Translation: Sea Tales at the Source of Jewish Fiction (Syracuse UP, 2016), Frieden analyzes this emergence of modern Hebrew literature after 1780, a time when Jews were moving beyond their conventional Torah- and Zion-centered worldview. Enlightened authors diverged from pilgrimage narrative traditions and appropriated travel narratives to America, the Pacific, and the Arctic. The effort to translate sea travel stories from European languages—with their nautical terms, wide horizons, and exotic occurrences—made particular demands on Hebrew writers. They had to overcome their tendency to introduce biblical phrases at every turn in order to develop a new, vivid, descriptive language. As Frieden explains through deft linguistic analysis, by 1818, a radically new travel literature in Hebrew had arisen. Authors such as Moses Mendelsohn-Frankfurt and Mendel Lefin published books that charted a new literary path through the world and in European history. Taking a fresh look at the origins of modern Jewish literature, Frieden launches a new approach to literary studies, one that lies at the intersection of translation studies and travel writing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
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    1 hr and 34 mins

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