While Israel is producing an overabundance of rabbis; the American Jewish community; it seems; is experiencing the shortage of qualified personal. In addition to the questions of quantity; the direction and the role that is played by the Jewish leaders is questioned as well. These two volumes; a product of a multi-year project to examine the challenges facing current Jewish religious leaders—rabbis; cantors; educators; and lay congregation leaders— and read at two conferences; is an attempt to place contemporary circumstances within a larger historical framework. The work represents a tangible outcome of those deliberations. The volumes review a broad sweep of the Jewish historical experience; starting with the essays on charismatic leadership in the Hebrew Bible and ending with contemporary Israel and the United States. The essays encompass Jewish life in environments as diverse as ancient Alexandria and small-town America; they range over medieval communities in Muslim lands and in Christian Tuscany; they encompass the key centers of medieval Ashkenaz and Sepharad; Germany and Spain; they include offshoot groups; such as the Karaites; and also examine the largest centers of Jewish activity in ancient Palestine and Babylonia; medieval Egypt; and pre-Holocaust Poland and Russia. Contributors run the gamut from historians to anthropologists; Bible scholars and talmudists have contributed; as have students of modern literature; philosophy; and sociology. Though organized in roughly chronological fashion and with due deference to milieu; articles in these volumes can be read profitably for how they resonate with one another even when they are concerned with communities at quite a remove in time and place.
#608547 in Books Hackett Pub Co 2006-03-15Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.50 x 5.50 x 1.00l; .37 #File Name: 0872207943320 pages
Review
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Excellent source of information on the Spanish InquisitionBy Peter S. BradleyThis book is composed of two parts.The first part is an introduction that constitutes a 37 page monograph on the antecedents and practices of the Spanish Inquisition. If the reader is looking for the titles of the officers of the Inquisition or the kinds of torture inflicted or the locations of inquisition tribunals; then this is an excellent source.The introduction is also a useful corrective for the lurid images that capture the public imagination. This may be a disappointment for those who want their lurid imaginations. For example; the Introduciton observes://The forms of torture in the Spanish Inquisition - and there is no evidence they ever changed - were the toca; wherein large quantities of water were poured down the defendant's nose and mouth to simulate drowning; the potro or rack; on which hte prisoner was bound with cords that could be tightened; and the garrucha; in which the prisoner was hung by his wrists tied from behind. Inquisitors explicitly warned defendants that any injuries they suffered would be their own fault. They also repeatedly asked the defendant to confess from the moment they all entered the torture room. If the defendant did confess during torture; whatever he had said had to be ratified on a subsequent day; if he later revoked what he had confessed; he could be tortured again for the same purposes. Though torture remains one of the most luried features of the Spanish Inquisition; scholars now believe it was applied rarely.// (p. xxv.)It actually does sound like how America treated terrorist suspects; right down to "water-boarding."The second part of the book consists of original documents of the Spanish Inquisition; including actual cases and decrees and even an inquisitorial "Deliberation on the Reality and Heresy of Witchcraft."This book is not for the faint of heart or for scandal-seekers. The documents read like the legal documents they are. Nonetheless; it does provide both an interesting view as to how the Spanish Inquisition actually worked and a sense of the experience of a facet of history as it was lived.1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. A bit boring...By j64thnotesThis book is a collection of documents during the period that weave together a very loose narrative around the workings of the Spanish Inquistion. It is brutually dry; I put it down; picked it up; repeatedly for two years beforing finish it. If you're not absolutely obessed with the Spanish Inquistion; you'll tire of it quickly.0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Homza does a great job of acquainting the reader with what life may ...By EliOriginally ordered this book for class; but I ended up just reading it for pleasure. Homza does a great job of acquainting the reader with what life may have looked 500 years ago in the Iberian Peninsula. I would recommend this work for anyone who wants to learn more about the Spanish Inquisition and how it affected the lives of people during that period.
