Alan T. Levenson 
The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism 

In The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism, a team
of internationally-renowned scholars offer a comprehensive and
authoritative overview of Jewish life and culture, from the
biblical period to contemporary times.

* Provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the main
periods and themes of Jewish history, from Biblical Israel, through
medieval and early modern periods, to Judaism since the Holocaust,
the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Judaism today

* Brings together an international team of established and
emerging scholars across a range of disciplines

* Discusses how to present Judaism – to both non-Jews and Jews –
as a religious system on its own terms and with its own unique
vocabulary

* Explores the latest scholarship on a range of issues, including
folk practices, politics, economic structure, the relationship of
Judaism to Christianity, and the nature of Zionism diaspora and its
implications for contemporary Israel

* Considers Jewish historiography and the lives of ordinary
people, the achievements of Jewish women, and the sustained
interaction of Jews within the environments they inhabited

* Edited by a leading scholar in Jewish studies and history

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Notes on Contributors ix

Preface xvii

Acknowledgments xix

Introduction 1

Part I Ancient Israel 13

1 What Is the Hebrew Bible? 15

Frederick E. Greenspahn

2 How ‚Historical‘ Is Ancient Israel? 25

Ehud Ben Zvi

3 Priests and Levites in the Hebrew Bible 35

Stephen A. Geller

4 How Unique Was Israelite Prophecy? 53

Jonathan St EURokl

5 Judaism after the Exile: The Later Books of the Bible 70

Daniel C. Snell

6 Translation: The Biblical Legacy to Judaism 83

Leonard Greenspoon

Part II From Ancient Israel to Rabbinic Jewry 99

7 Jews in the Land During the Second Temple Period 101

Steven Werlin

8 Jews in Egypt: The Special Case of the Septuagint 121

Peg Kershenbaum

9 Early Christianity in a Jewish Context 142

Julie Galambush

10 The Babylonian Consolidation of Rabbinic Judaism 156

Shai Secunda

Part III The Medieval World: Jews in Two Cultures 167

11 Jews in Christian Europe: Ashkenaz in the Middle Ages
169

Eva Haverkamp

12 The Jews in the Medieval Arabic-Speaking World 207

Norman (Noam) Stillman

13 Turning Point: The Spanish Expulsion 224

Jane S. Gerber

14 Medieval Jewish Mysticism 244

Hartley Lachter

Part IV The Early Modern Period
(Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries) 257

15 Judaism and Science in the Age of Discovery 259

Joseph M. Davis

16 A History of Hasidism: Origins and Developments 277

Gadi Sagiv

17 Jews and Judaism in the Early Modern New World: Central and
North America 291

Dean Phillip Bell

18 The Jews of the Ottoman Empire 309

Yaron Ayalon

Part V The Modern Period 325

19 How Jews Modernized: The Western Nations 327

Carsten Schapkow

20 The Zionist Movement and the Path to Statehood 343

Brian Amkraut

21 The Jews in the Land of the Russian Tsars 361

Jarrod Tanny

22 The Great Migration: 1881-1924 381

Jessica Cooperman

23 Polish Jewry between the World Wars 393

Sean Martin

24 Organized Movements of American Judaism: From 1880 to World
War II 409

Michael R. Cohen

25 Paths of Modernity: Jewish Women in Central Europe 422

Kerry Wallach

26 Antisemitism and Anti-Jewish Hostility 441

Richard S. Levy

Part VI Jews and Judaism since the Holocaust and the Birth of
Israel 459

27 The Existential Crisis of the Holocaust 461

Peter Haas

28 American Jews and the Jewish State 476

David Bamberger

29 Judaism(s) in Contemporary America 489

Dana Evan Kaplan

30 Traditional Judaism in the Twenty-First Century 514

Mark I. Dunaevsky

31 Contemporary American Jewish Culture 529

Ted Merwin

32 Israeli Culture from 1948 to the Present 548

Keren Rubinstein

33 The Israeli Economy 571

Paul Rivlin

34 Ethnic Diversity in Israel 586

Ari Ariel

Part VII Special Topics 601

35 The World of Jewish Music 603

Marsha Bryan Edelman

36 American Jewry’s Identification with Israel: Problems
and Prospects 619

Laurence J. Silberstein

37 The Jewish Holy Days 643

Stanley Schachter

Index 661

Über den Autor

Alan T. Levenson is Schusterman/Josey Professor of Jewish Intellectual and Religious History at the University of Oklahoma. His publications include Modern Jewish Thinkers: An Introduction (2006); Between Philosemitism and Antisemitism: German Defenses of Jews and Judaism (2004); The Story of Joseph: A Jewish Journey of Interpretation (2004); and The Making of the Modern Jewish Bible (2011).