Celebrating the Jewish Year: The Winter Holidays: Hanukkah, Tu B'shevat, Purim

by Paul Steinberg and Rabbi Paul Steinberg

Book Overview

Named a 2007 National Jewish Book Award Runner-Up in the category of Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice.

JPS's new holiday books take us through the joys, spirit, and meaning of the seasons. Blending the old and the new, they ground us in the origins and traditions of each holiday and open up to us ways we can add our own expression to these special days. Although synagogue ritual is touched upon, the real focus here is on our personal...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0827608497
• ISBN13: 9780827608498
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.8" x 10.1"

Customer Reviews

A Link Between the Jewish Seasons and Holidays

//Celebrating the Jewish Year// is a collection of essays, poems, rituals and prayers surrounding the four major spring and summer Jewish holidays. It looks at Passover, The Omer, Shavuot and Tisha b'Av, and uses modern and classic writers and essayists of the Jewish faith to explain the origin of the holidays, their significance and ways to celebrate them. Essayists include Alan Lew, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco, and a teacher at UC Berkeley. Others are Jewish thinkers and writers like Elie Wiesel, Milton Steinberg, Irving Greenberg and David Wolpe. Well written and collected, //Celebrating the Jewish Year// is an excellent addition to not only a Jewish library, but any religious library interested in seeing the link between the seasons and the holidays that surrounded them in Jewish tradition.

A superb addition to personal, family, school and community library Judaic Studies reference collect

Deftly edited by Janet Greenstein Potter, "Celebrating The Jewish Year: The Winter Holidays" by Rabbi Paul Steinberg (Director of Jewish Studies and Hebrew at the Levine Academy: A Solomon Schechter School in Dallas, Texas) focuses upon three Jewish sacred events: Hanukkah, Tu b'Shevat, and Purim. Drawing from an impressive roster of original sources ranging from Maimonides, to Nachman of Bratzlav, to Theodor Herzle, Rabbi Steinberg provides readers with histories and insights into these Judaic celebrations including the prayers, rituals, and stories associated with each of them. A superb addition to personal, family, school and community library Judaic Studies reference collections, "Celebrating The Jewish Year" is very highly recommended and informative reading that will help the reader to crate a memorable holiday experience for themselves and their loved ones that will be enhanced in both meaning and spirit.