Being Jewish Today: Confronting the Real Issues
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Book Overview
A Reform rabbi's nuanced perspective on the impact of modernity on the Jewish community today.
In a world where anti-semitism is on the rise, the Jewish community is under threat throughout the world. With far-right governments being elected in Poland, Hungary and Austria, the rhetoric has dreadful echoes of Germany in the 1930s. Rabbi Bayfield was until recently President of the UK Movement for Reform Judaism. He is intensely aware of the pressure on modern Jewish people; marrying outside the community, anti-Israel prejudice, the effects of the feminist movement and the campaign for gay and lesbian rights have all had their impact and have in many ways atomized the Jewish community itself.
This leads to a fundamental reconsideration of Jewish identity, of a revitalization of study of the Torah, of the intellectual case for a religion based on a covenant and law made millennia ago. The Jewish religion today is based as it always has been on tradition and hope, both commodities in poor supply at the moment. Rabbi Bayfield draws on key Jewish thinkers who can contribute to the force of his argument - Levinas, Maimonides, Hannah Arendt, Jonathan Sacks, Spinoza, Samson Raphael Hirsch, Walter Benjamin and Stephen Jay Gould. Rabbi Bayfield's book is written to appeal to all Jewish people, whether religious or cultural, and to increase the understanding and self-understanding of Judaism today.
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