Best of
Judaism

1971

Hannah Senesh, Her Life and Diary


Hannah Senesh - 1971
    Safe in Palestine during World War II, she volunteered for a mission to help rescue fellow Jews in her native Hungary. She was captured by the Nazis, endured imprisonment and torture, and was finally executed at the age of twenty-three. Like Anne Frank, she kept a diary from the time she was thirteen. This new edition brings together not only the widely read and cherished diary, but many of Hannah's poems and letters, memoirs written by Hannah's mother, accounts by parachutists who accompanied Hannah on her fateful mission, and insightful material not previously published in English.

A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward


Isaac Metzker - 1971
    Created in 1906 to help bewildered Eastern European immigrants learn about their new country, the column also gave them a forum for seeking advice and support in the face of problems ranging from wrenching spiritual dilemmas to petty family squabbles to the sometimes hilarious predicaments that result when Old World meets New. Isaac Metzker's beloved selection of these letters and responses has become for today's readers a remarkable oral record not only of the varied problems of Jewish immigrant life in America but also of the catastrophic events of the first half of our century.

The Messianic Idea in Judaism: And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality


Gershom Scholem - 1971
    This relationship is important not only for an appreciation of the mystic and Messianic movements but for Jewish history in general.Scholem clarifies the Messianic concept and analyzes its transformation in the Kabbalah up to the paradoxical versions it assumed in the Sabbatian and Frankist movement, in which sin became a vehicle of redemption.

First Christmas: The True yet Unfamiliar Story of Christ's Birth


Paul L. Maier - 1971
    Maier.

Bar-Kokhba


Yigael Yadin - 1971
    Expedition leader Yigael Yadin (author of 'Masada') here tells the story of this & other discoveries, bringing Bar-Kokhba out of the romantic shadows of legend & restoring to the Jewish people a real-life hero. PrefaceBehind the legend The curtain rises First rays of hope-Probing The only caveThe niche of skullsThe wardrobe The clue of the coin The great find The letters speakThe second search'The redemption of Israel'Herodium, Qumran, Masada & BetharNo stone unturned 'He who toils shall find'The life & trials of BabataAppendix of References to Bar-KokhbaGlossaryBibliographyPublisher's AcknowledgementsIndex

The Star of Redemption


Franz Rosenzweig - 1971
    An affirmation of what Rosenzweig called “the new thinking,” the work ensconces common sense in the place of abstract, conceptual philosophizing and posits the validity of the concrete, individual human being over that of “humanity” in general. Fusing philosophy and theology, it assigns both Judaism and Christianity distinct but equally important roles in the spiritual structure of the world and finds in both biblical religions approaches toward a comprehension of reality.

The Trial and Death of Jesus


Haim Hermann Cohn - 1971
    The Publishers feel it appropriate to reissue at this time a probing work that examines from another perspective these events that can fairly be said to have changed the course of Western history. A justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, writing as an expert on Jewish legal history, who is proud of Jesus' here challenges the descriptions and interpretations of the trial and death of Jesus as presented by the Evangelists in the New Testament.Subjecting the Gospel reports to close forensic examination, Justice Cohn scrutinizes the texts in the light of information we possess from other sources concerning the laws and procedures (both Jewish and Roman) then prevailing; the political, ideological and religious motivations which may have prompted the actors to act; and the causes and purposes for which the Evangelists may have given the accounts they did. By thus placing the trial of Jesus in the context of known legal, political and religious facts, he is able to reconstruct the events as they may really have happened. And in so doing, he makes the case that "perversion of justice" traditionally ascribed to the trial itself must more truthfully be attributed to the aftermath of the trial - namely, the prejudice and persecutions of centuries.Whether we ultimately accept or reject Justice Cohn's conclusions, his incisive analysis and extraordinary command of historical evidence provides a context to deepen and challenge our interpretations of the Gospel narrative.