Book Reviews – Spring 2014, Volume 26, Numbers 1–2
Jon D. Levenson, Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012, 244 pp. Reviewed by Rivkah Fishman-Duker THE IDEA OF ABRAHAMIC RELIGION In recent years, the idea of Abrahamic religion has taken root. Basically, it means that Judaism, Christianity and Islam owe their existence to Abraham […]
Message from the Editor
The current issue of the Jewish Political Studies Review contains six articles that deal with the Jewish people in the world, as communities abroad, and as the sovereign nation-state of Israel.
The Jewish Nation-State Bill: Is There a Contradiction between Judaism and Democracy?
One of the reasons for the breakup of the Netanyahu government in December 2014 was a serious disagreement concerning the “Law of the Nation,” otherwise known as the Jewish Nation-State Bill.
World Vision: Strategies for Fund-Raising and Support for Hamas
Throughout its history, World Vision (WV), a multi-billion dollar relief, development and advocacy agency that promotes child welfare in poor countries throughout the world,1 has used images and stories of suffering and dying children to solicit donations. When it did so during the Ethiopian famine of 1984 and 1985, this practice met with criticism.2 Nonetheless, […]
French Jewry and the Dieudonné Affair
The Jewish community in France currently is in the midst of one of its most difficult periods since the end of World War II. According to the Jerusalem Post, “French aliya figures correlate with a spike in anti-Semitic attacks registered last year: A total of 614 recorded incidents that constituted a 58% increase from 2011. […]
Caroline B. Glick, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East
Caroline B. Glick, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, New York: Crown Forum, 2014, 324 pp. The Israeli Solution does not simply present another plan for ending the intractable conflict in the Middle East. It is a solid defense of Zionism that provides Israelis and Israel’s friends who, over […]
Alan Baker, ed., Palestinian Manipulation of the International Community
Alan Baker, ed., Palestinian Manipulation of the International Community, Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2014, 169 pp. The major focus of this collection of essays is the relentless Palestinian effort to isolate and discredit Israel internationally and the ensuing complicity of NGOs, journalists, UN officials, religious leaders, and politicians in Europe, North America, and […]
Robert Wuthnow, Red State Religion: Faith and Politics in America’s Heartland
Robert Wuthnow, Red State Religion: Faith and Politics in America’s Heartland, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012, 504 pp. Robert Wuthnow, Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, has written numerous books and articles in the field of sociology of religion. A student of Robert Bellah, he refined and further developed the concept of civil religion. […]
Charles Small, ed., Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity
Charles Small, ed., Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity, Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2013, 315 pp. Charles Small, ed., Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity, New York: Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), 2013, five volumes, 719 pp. Antisemitism is back. So is Charles Small. That is what this hard-cover volume […]
Hugh Wilford, America’s Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East
Hugh Wilford, America’s Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East, New York: Basic Books, 2013, 384 pp. America’s Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East recounts the early history of American intervention, intelligence and espionage in the Middle East during the […]
Jon D. Levenson, Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Jon D. Levenson, Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012, 244 pp. THE IDEA OF ABRAHAMIC RELIGION In recent years, the idea of Abrahamic religion has taken root. Basically, it means that Judaism, Christianity and Islam owe their existence to Abraham who discovered God and […]
Message from the Editor JPSR
Message from the Editor Tikkun Olam is the subject of the present issue of JPSR. What we understand by this term can at the same time be clear and elusive. While it originated in the Talmudic period, the concept of tikkun olam at present has become fashionable and may well include applied programs of practical […]
The Assimilation of Tikkun Olam
INTRODUCTION Tikkun olam is most commonly heard as a slogan for activism, political involvement and social justice. The term has had numerous lives, such that its endurance and malleability over time are truly impressive. It has been used as a pliable legislative justification for changing specific laws and as an eschatological ideal that may describe […]
The Place of Tikkun Olam in American Jewish Life
INTRODUCTION The symbolic moment when the now ubiquitous phrase “tikkun olam” entered the American Jewish mainstream probably took place during the visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States in September 1987. A crisis in Vatican-Jewish relations was precipitated by the Pope’s meeting in June with President Kurt Waldheim of Austria, whose activities […]
The Limits of Tikkun Olam: Questions and Answers
Does the very act of positive ethical behavior automatically fall into the category of tikkun olam, and are there conditions where the term does not apply?
