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 Miriam
Bodian:
Hebrews
of the
Portuguese Nation.
Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam. Bloomington:
Indiana
University
Press, 1997
"
... a wonderful case study of a particular sub-culture
within the Jewish world which came to play a decisive role
in early modern Jewish history. ... Clearly and engagingly written,
the book is an excellent introduction to the history and culture of the
Western Sephardim."
Aron Rodrigue,
Stanford University
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Arnold
M. Eisen:
Rethinking
Modern Judaism. Ritual, Commandment, Community. Chicago:
Chicago
University Press, 1999
"I
know of no other treatment of these issues that matches Eisen's talents
for synthesizing a wide variety of historical, philosophical, and
social scientific sources, and bringing them to bear in a balanced and
open-minded way on the delicate questions of why modern Jews relate as
they do to the practices of Judaism."
Joseph
Reimer, Boston Book Review
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Shmuel
Feiner:
The
Jewish Enlightenment. Philadelphia:
University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2002
"Feiner's
work is likely to become the standard book on the Haskalah
and thus will become indispensable to scholars of Jewish history,
literature, and thought."
David
Sorkin, University of Wisconsin
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David
Fromkin:
A
Peace
to End All Peace. The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of
the Modern Middle East. New York: Owl Books, 2002
"This
detailed and admirably lucid book describes the destruction of the
Ottoman empire by the Allies in the First War, and the emergence by
1922 of a new order in the Middle East. ... this excellent and
substantial book ... benefits from a close study of recent research, a
lively style and a strong sense of the influence of personalities on
events".
Daily
Telegraph
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Sylvie-Ann
Goldberg:
Crossing
the Jabbok. Illness and Death in Ashkenazi Judaism in Sixteenth-
through Nineteenth-Century Prague. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1996
" ...
a superb and utterly engaging history of sickness, death and burial in
Ashkenaz. This important study belongs in every university library."
Steven
Fine, Baltimore Hebrew University
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David
Hollinger:
Science,
Jews, and Secular Culture. Studies in Mid-Twentieth Century American
Intellectual History. New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1996
"Hollinger's
essays are intellectual history at its best. Each development, even if
trivial in itself, is situated in a broad cultural context that endows
it with general significance. ... The book is recommended to students
of the history and/or sociology of the Jews, of intellectual life in
America in the twentieth century, and of science."
Gad Freudenthal, CNRS, Paris
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Moshe Idel:
Absorbing
Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation. New Haven: Yale
University
Press, 2002
"Idel
displays his grasp of a wide-ranging and deep body of material. Highly
recommended for academic libraries, especially those serving Judaic
studies programs, this book may also be of interest to advanced
students in literature and philosophy."
Library Journal
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Benjamin
Nathans:
Beyond
the Pale. The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2002
"I
finished the book wishing that there was more to go, which is not what
you usually wish for when you reach the last page of an academic
monograph. This is scholarship to be pondered, savored, and emulated."
Willard
Sunderland, University of Cincinnati
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Marc-Alain
Ouaknin:
The
Burnt Book. Reading the Talmud. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1998
"Ouaknin
has given us a fresh insight into the process of Jewish reading ... A
volume which is of benefit to the novice in Jewish classical texts as
well as to the seasoned scholar."
Joseph
Kanofsky, Boston University
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Colette
Sirat:
Hebrew
Manuscripts of the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002
" ...
an elegantly produced and superb introduction to the study of Hebrew
manuscripts, their scribes, and their contents that will enlighten
students and scholars alike ... It is a book written by a master of the
material with a sensitive eye and a sharp reed. ... It is a tribute to
the book making craft ..."
Steven
Bowman, University of Cincinnati
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Chava
Weissler:
Voices
of the Matriarchs. Listening to the Prayers of Early Modern Jewish
Women. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998
"In
this brilliant work, Weissler has laid the foundation of another volume
exploring the way Ashkenaz maintained a gendered society founded on
piety. The volume provides a foundation that broadens the meaning of
recent work by Paula Hyman, Pamela Nadell, Riv-Ellen Prell, and Laura
Levitt that explore the religious dilemmas faced by modernizing Jewish
women in Europe and America."
Dianne
Ashton, Rowan University
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