Ira Robinson 
Translating a Tradition 
Studies in American Jewish History

Divided into three sections, this work explains how the concepts and practices of traditional European Judaism were adapted to North American culture beginning in the late nineteenth century. Part I focuses on the ideas and activities of Cyrus Adler (1863-1940), one of the most prominent leaders of the traditionalist United States Jewish community in his era. The issues in these essays include the origins of American Jewish history as a field of study, the Kehilla experiments of the early twentieth century, and the relationship between the Jewish Theological Seminary and Orthodox Judaism. Part II deals with the beginnings of Hasidic Judaism in North America prior to the Second World War. It also includes several studies investigating the shaping of the worldview of Orthodox Judaism in contemporary North America. Part III examines the issue of contemporary American Jewish attitudes toward evolution and intelligent design.

Spis treści

Preface. I. Cyrus Adler: Toward the Biography of an American Jew. The Invention of American Jewish History. Cyrus Adler and The American: a Moment in the Intellectual History of American Jewry. Cyrus Adler the Philadelphian. Two North American Kehillot and Their Structure: Philadelphia and Montreal. Cyrus Adler, Bernard Revel and the Prehistory of Organized Jewish Scholarship in the United States. Cyrus Adler and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America: Image and Reality. Cyrus Adler: President of the Jewish Theological Seminary, 1915-1940. The Correspondence of Cyrus Adler and Racie Friedenwald Adler: New Perspectives on the Development of American Jewry in the Early Twentieth Century (with Dr. Maxine Jacobson). A Supplemental Bibliography of Cyrus Adler. II. Orthodox Judaism in North America. The First Hasidic Rabbis in North America. Anshe Sfard: the Creation of the First Hasidic Congregations in North America. Hasid and Maskil: The Hasidic Tales of an American Yiddish Journalist. Because of Our Many Sins: The Contemporary Jewish World as Reflected in the Responsa of Rabbi Moses Feinstein. That Marvelous Midos Machine: Audio Tapes as an Orthodox Educational Medium. “Practically I Am a Fundamentalist” : Twentieth Century Orthodox Jews Contend With Evolution and Its Implications. III. Contemporary American Judaism. American Jewish Views of Evolution and Intelligent Design. Index.

O autorze

Ira Robinson is Chair in Quebec and Canadian Jewish Studies in the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, where has taught since 1979. He has written, edited, and translated seventeen books, including Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, which won the Kenneth Smilen Award for Judaica non-fiction; Renewing Our Days: Montreal Jews in the Twentieth Century, which won a Toronto Jewish Book Award; Moses Cordovero’s Introduction to Kabbala: An Annotated Translation of His Or Ne’erav; Rabbis and Their Community: Studies in the Eastern European Orthodox Rabbinate in Montreal, 1896-1930, which won a J.I. Segal Prize; A History of Antisemitism in Canada; History, Memory, and Jewish Identity, and, most recently, Les Juifs Hassidiques de Montréal (2019). He is president of the Canadian Society for Jewish Studies, and past president of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies and the Jewish Public Library of Montreal. He is the 2013 winner of the Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies.