From world-renowned public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy comes an incisive and provocative look at the heart of Judaism.“A smart; revealing; and essential book for our times.â€â€”The Washington Post For more than four decades; Bernard-Henri Lévy has been a singular figure on the world stage—one of the great moral voices of our time. Now Europe's foremost philosopher and activist confronts his spiritual roots and the religion that has always inspired and shaped him—but that he has never fully reckoned with. The Genius of Judaism is a breathtaking new vision and understanding of what it means to be a Jew; a vision quite different from the one we’re used to. It is rooted in the Talmudic traditions of argument and conflict; rather than biblical commandments; borne out in struggle and study; not in blind observance. At the very heart of the matter is an obligation to the other; to the dispossessed; and to the forgotten; an obligation that; as Lévy vividly recounts; he has sought to embody over decades of championing “lost causes;†from Bosnia to Africa’s forgotten wars; from Libya to the Kurdish Peshmerga’s desperate fight against the Islamic State; a battle raging as we speak. Lévy offers a fresh; surprising critique of a new and stealthy form of anti-Semitism on the rise as well as a provocative defense of Israel from the left. He reveals the overlooked Jewish roots of Western democratic ideals and confronts the current Islamist threat while intellectually dismantling it. Jews are not a “chosen people;†Lévy explains; but a “treasure†whose spirit must continue to inform moral thinking and courage today. Lévy’s most passionate book; and in many ways his most personal; The Genius of Judaism is a great; profound; and hypnotic intellectual reckoning—indeed a call to arms—by one of the keenest and most insightful writers in the world.Praise for The Genius of Judaism“In The Genius of Judaism; Lévy elaborates on his credo by rebutting the pernicious and false logic behind current anti-Semitism and defends Israel as the world’s most successful multi-ethnic democracy created from scratch. Lévy also makes the case for France’s Jews being integral to the establishment of the French nation; the French language; and French literature. And last; but certainly not least; he presents a striking interpretation of the Book of Jonah. . . . A tour de force.â€â€”Forbes “Ardent . . . Lévy’s message is essentially uplifting: that the brilliant scholars of Judaism; the authors of the Talmud; provide elucidation into ‘the great questions that have stirred humanity since the dawn of time.’ . . . A philosophical celebration of Judaism.â€â€”Kirkus Reviews “Lévy (Left in Dark Times); a prominent French journalist and politically engaged philosopher; turns his observations inward here; pondering the teachings of Judaism and the role they have played in contemporary European history as well as in his own life and intellectual inquiry. . . . [Lévy’s] musings on the meaning of the story of Jonah and the relevance of symbolic Ninevahs in our time are both original and poetic. . . . A welcome addition to his oeuvre.â€â€”Publishers Weekly
#1069242 in Books Random House Trade Paperbacks 2008-08-12 2008-08-12Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.54 x .58 x 5.23l; .46 #File Name: 0812972988272 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Four StarsBy Feuer Istvánnévery intertesing; very detailed1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. This is the best biography of Amerigo Vespucci that exists; and probably will be the best for generationsBy Gene Rhea Tucker4.5 out of 5Fernández-Armesto is ever-witty; erudite; and engaging. His research is wide and detailed. His story told with verve. This is the best biography of Amerigo Vespucci that exists; and probably will be the best for generations.Vespucci was nothing special. He was not a navigator. Unlike Columbus the Genoese; he was a landlubbing Florentine. He was not a competent businessman. He made no vast sums. He was not a conquistador. He found no riches like Cortés. Vespucci was a middling factotum for larger Florentine interests who probably captained no ships and only made two voyages; not the three or four often ascribed to him.Fernández-Armesto calls him a magus. A trickster who parleyed his late-Renaissance learning; his Florentine-Medici connections; and his gift for self-promotion into a sort of fame; or infamy. He wrote to his sometime patron; Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici; and others; playing up his travels. He exaggerated and hyperbolized his mere tagging along on a Spanish expedition and a Portuguese expedition; turning these into grand explorations under his captaincy. All poppycock. But the books that came into print under his name; Fernández-Armesto claims that he had a hand in all of them; made him into a superstar. The books had the standard tropes of the genre (Sir John Mandeville and Columbus were his models): cannibals; naked savages; wild birds; exotic fauna and flora; and the like. These books became bestsellers; and Vespucci's fame brought him a job with the Spanish (a job that he did not do particularly well) and reputation. This reputation led to the strange incident of Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann slapping his name on the South American continent they put on their 1507 wall map of the world. Why? They believed Vespucci's P.R. that he had found a "new world;" a "new continent." Fernández-Armesto points out; he didn't discover it; he didn't land on it first; and he wasn't the first to call it something new (Columbus himself had called it an "otro mundo;" an "other world"). But he got the credit. And the name stuck.A fine book all around: writing; research; reading. Good endnotes; good index; decent images (Fernández-Armesto dismisses the conjecture via Vasari that the boy painted in the Madonna della Misericordia by Domenico Ghirlandaio at the Ognissanti church in Florence is a young Amerigo); one map. The only thing which knocked it down to 4.5 stars is the lack of a bibliography/suggested readings.0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Utterly VacuousBy J. JonesI read a short excerpt and a summary of book contents and saw that this is merely the latest contribution to the tradition of slandering the man whose name was given to America by people who knew the secrets he kept. I am currently researching Amerigo's career and working on a book. Te truth is that he received non-European training that enabled him to sail like a European/American of 1850. He hid this from the monarchs. During his third voyage (1501-2); he circumnavigated the world; visiting all seven continents. He mapped Antarctica.Felipe Fernandez-Armesto never knew that mage.
