rabbinic culture and its critics: jewish authority, dissent and heresy in medieval and early modern...

study of the hasidic tale, its history, its place in hasidicsociety, and its importance for understanding the theologyand sociology of Hasidism. The first part of the book is abio-bibliographical study of the major authors who collectedand published the hasidic tales. Some of them were associ-ated with the hasidic movement, and some were writerswhose motivations were more financial than spiritual. Thecollections were often printed as chapbooks that appealed toa more popular audience, even though they were written inHebrew. The second part of the book, constituting the bulk ofthe work, collects and analyzes hasidic stories thematically.Among the topics considered, are the hasidic tale as seeninternally by the hasidic movement, the zaddiq, and his rela-tion to his followers and his opponents. Another majortheme is areas of life that the zaddiq was believed to havethe power to control like health, children, and livelihood. Themagical and supernatural worlds are also the domain of thezaddiq, and stories about the zaddiq’s powers in this realmare also analyzed. The book is enhanced with a very helpfulglossary, gazetteer of place names, bibliography, and index.This is a pioneering work that will interest not only thoseinterested in Hasidism, but also students of folklore, popularreligion, and spirituality.

Morris M. FaiersteinRockville, MD

ALCHEMY AND KABBALAH. By Gershom Scholem.Translated from the German by Klaus Ottman. Putnam, CT:Spring Publications, 2006. Pp. 110. $20.00.

Scholem wrote an article on Alchemy and Kabbalah atthe beginning of his scholarly career in 1925. He publisheda revised and expanded version of that article a halfcentury later, at the end of his career, in the Eranos Year-book 46 (1977). This small volume is an English translationof the Eranos article. In the first part, Scholem considersthe relationship of medieval Kabbalah, particularly theZohar, to alchemy. He concludes that there are very fewsimilarities and those are primarily coincidental, while thedifferences are great. For example, the zoharic schema ofsefirot and metals is different from the alchemical hierar-chy. In the Zohar, silver is hesed, a sefirah that is higherthan din, which is identified with gold. The second partconsiders Jewish scholars, primarily beginning in the latefifteenth century in Italy, who evidenced an interest inalchemy. For the most part, they were not kabbalists. L. deModena, for example, was very interested in alchemy and astaunch opponent of Kabbalah. The most famous kabbalistwho also had a serious interest in alchemy was R. H. Vital,a major kabbalist of the Safed revival. The last part dis-cusses the relationship of alchemy and the Christian kab-balists of the seventeenth century. Here too, therelationship is ambiguous at best. This translation is a sig-nificant contribution to the literature on the subject. Itwould have been much more valuable if reference to thesignificant studies published in the last thirty years

touching on aspects of this work had been mentioned inthe footnotes.


MESSIANIC MYSTICISM: MOSES HAYIM LUZ-ZATTO AND THE PADUA SCHOOL. By Isaiah Tishby.Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2008.Pp. xxv + 578. $69.50.

Rabbi M. H. Luzzatto (1707-1746) was a prolific andimportant author of poems, plays, and the most importantJewish ethical treatise. Less well known and much morecontroversial are his messianic aspirations and the circles ofdisciples who gathered around him that actively attemptedto bring the Messiah. Luzzatto claimed that a magid, a heav-enly messenger, was revealed to him and it brought himmystical insights from heaven. He began to write a newedition of the Zohar, the classic text of Jewish mysticism.When these writings were discovered, it was decided thatthey were heretical and he was ordered to cease, but wasexpelled from Padua when he did not obey. He settled inAmsterdam and eventually immigrated to Israel, where hedied. The messianic writings of Luzzatto and his discipleswere suppressed and remained in manuscript. The lateIsaiah Tishby, one of the major scholars of Kabbalah, discov-ered some of these writings in the 1950s, and over thecourse of the next thirty years published the writings of thiscircle and analyzed them as he continued to find new manu-scripts. This volume presents the fruits of Tishby’s researchin English translation. Luzzatto and his disciples lived in aperiod of great cultural transition and the beginnings ofmodernity. The writings of this group look forward to theemerging ideas of the enlightenment, and at the same timelook back to earlier Jewish mystical movements like Sab-bateanism. They offer a window into the minds of a group ofJews who stood with one foot in the past and one in the futurethat was just dawning.


Judaism: ModernERASED: VANISHING TRACES OF JEWISHGALICIA IN PRESENT-DAY UKRAINE. By OmerBartov. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.Pp. xvii + 232, plates, maps. $26.95.

This fascinating book—part travelogue and part histori-cal survey—describes the material remains of pre-war Jewishlife in twenty cities and towns of Western Ukraine, a regiononce known as Galicia. Before the Holocaust, this region wasa vibrant center of Jewish life; today, hardly any Jewsremain. Bartov found (apparently in 2004) that relativelylittle is being done by locals to preserve the memory of theJewish inhabitants of their towns and that the “traces” ofJewish life were quickly vanishing. He compares this with

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the current interest in the Jewish past in Germany, Poland,and other European countries. He also discusses cases ofUkrainian complicity in the Holocaust and claims that thereis a relative lack of self-examination of this topic in Ukraineas compared with other countries. Bartov brings to the topica great deal of knowledge and insight regarding the Holo-caust in Germany. However, though he clearly made valiantefforts to master the Ukrainian language and the complexi-ties of the Ukrainian past and present, he is less familiarwith those subjects. Thus, while this book effectively docu-ments a contemporary reality of limited interest by locals inthe Jewish past of this region, it also shows the need forfurther research on these topics.

Shaul StampferHebrew University

THE BOLDNESS OF AN HALAKHIST: AN ANALY-SIS OF THE WRITINGS OF RABBI YECHIELMECHEL HALEVI EPSTEIN: THE ARUKH HASHUL-HAN. By Simcha Fishbane. Boston: Academic Studies Press,2008. Pp. xxii + 184. $55.00.

Epstein was a nineteenth century Lithuanian rabbi whowrote a very influential summary of Jewish law, entitledArukh HaShulhan, that is regularly reprinted up until today.The author of this volume terms it “a collection of social-anthropological essays.” In fact, the nine chapters of thisbook present important aspects of the Jewish legal world ofthe nineteenth century to the modern reader. The bookopens with a long chapter on the life and works of RabbiEpstein. The author goes on to chapters dealing withEpstein’s views on the Russian political system, the processof arriving at legal decisions as reflected in Arukh Hashul-han, the role and status of women, and his attitudes to vio-lence, modernity, secular studies, and the place andauthority of custom. An appendix contains a rather curiousreport on a graphologist’s analysis of Epstein’s handwriting.Fishman writes clearly and concisely. He points out thatEpstein held many views that do not fit stereotypical viewsof the past. This enables readers who know only English togain a nuanced picture of East European rabbinic attitudes.The issues Fishman chose to deal with invite comparisonwith other thinkers and other religious traditions, and thisadds to the utility of this very interesting volume.

Shaul StampfersHebrew University

RABBINIC CULTURE AND ITS CRITICS: JEWISHAUTHORITY, DISSENT AND HERESY IN MEDI-EVAL AND EARLY MODERN TIMES. Edited by DanielFrank and Matt Goldish. Detroit: Wayne State UniversityPress, 2008. Pp. xv + 480. $49.95.

This fascinating and significant book, based on a 2001conference at Ohio State University, is the first major collec-tion of studies on dissent to rabbinic culture in the medievaland early modern period. It contains fifteen studies, four ofwhich were previously published. It opens with a valuable

essay by the editors offering an overview of what rabbinicculture is. Topics covered in the contributions include rab-binic Judaism and its boundaries in the Middle Ages; Jews,conversos, and heretics in the early modern period; andSabbateanism. The authors include some of the mostauthoritative and original scholars writing in the field. Theresult is rich and often surprising. The impressive scopeconvincingly demolishes any preconception of a monolithic,pre-modern Judaism, and the nature of the topic invites com-parison with other groups and how they dealt with dissent.The contents will clearly be required reading for manytopics. The volume itself is well edited and well indexedwhich adds to the usefulness of this volume for nonexperts.


REVOLUTION, REPRESSION, AND REVIVAL: THESOVIET JEWISH EXPERIENCE. Edited by Zvi Gitelmanand Yaacov Ro’i. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.Pp. xi + 406. $79.00.

Most of the articles in this volume were given at a con-ference in Jerusalem in 2003, held in honor of M. Altshuler.The authors include most of the leading scholars on SovietJewry and hence the book gives a clear picture of the currentstate of research in the field. Some of the articles, such asthose of A. Zeltser, Beizer, and Khanin among others, dealexplicitly and very perceptively with the fate and response ofJudaism to the revolution and to the realities of life under theSoviet regime. However, even those that are not focused onreligious issues provide essential tools for understandingthe reasons for the long-term decline in Jewish observanceand religious identity in the USSR. The studies in thisvolume are focused on key issues and they do not evade hardquestions. It is an excellent introduction to the study ofSoviet and post-Soviet Jewry in the twentieth century.


THE MELLAH OF MARRAKESH: JEWISH ANDMUSLIM SPACE IN MOROCCO’S RED CITY. By EmilyGottreich. Indiana Series in Middle East Studies. Blooming-ton: Indiana Univ. Press, 2007. Pp. xiii + 201. $24.95.

Focusing on questions of intergroup relations and urbanspace in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-centuryMarrakesh, Gottreich’s innovative study makes a significantcontribution to several intersecting fields including MiddleEast studies, Jewish-Muslim relations, and urban studies.This is a fascinating, thought-provoking examination of rela-tions between Jews and Muslims in an urban setting in theArab world. The book’s substantive chapters examine theformation of the traditional Jewish quarter of Marrakesh(the Mellah), the central myths surrounding the Jewish dis-trict of this city, the different roles that the ostensibly closedJewish quarter played in the lives of many of Marrakesh’sMuslim residents, and the regularity with which Jews ven-tured beyond the Mellah’s walls and into other parts of the


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city. The end result is a fascinating analysis of the manydifferent ways that Jews and Muslims regularly interacted ina city that was theoretically divided along religious andethnic lines. The book is both straightforward and creative ina refreshing and accessible manner. Gottreich convincinglydemonstrates that the walls that were initially created todivide Muslims and Jews did not separate members of thesetwo communities. The book is a wonderful example of howdifferent theoretical models and analytical tools can bringnew light to ostensibly well-researched subjects like rela-tions between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East. Thefresh approach and strong arguments are sure to make it afine example of the joys of interdisciplinary research.

Scott UryTel Aviv University

CONCEALMENT AND REVELATION: ESOTERI-CISM IN JEWISH THOUGHT AND ITS IMPLICA-TIONS. By Moshe Halbertal. Translated by Jackie Friedman.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xiv +200. $29.95.

The first aim of Halbertal’s dense study is to present theesoteric doctrines of the major figures of medieval Jewishthought (such as I. Ezra, Maimonides, Nachmanides, and theauthors of the Zohar) as part of a larger medieval Jewish (andIslamic) intellectual and cultural milieu that was engaged inan intense debate over the value of various forms of wisdomexternal to the religious tradition, and whether their studyshould be restricted to an initiated elite, revealed to thepublic, or permitted at all. The historical aspect of this studyfocuses on the social and cultural implications of what Hal-bertal calls the “esoteric paradox”; while esoteric doctrinesclaim to restrict sacred knowledge in order to protect a reli-gious tradition’s highest truths, their very secrecy canlicense tremendous intellectual freedom and allow for theintegration of foreign ideas into the inner sanctum of a reli-gious tradition. The book’s second aim is to use this histori-cal lens to build a conceptual taxonomy of esoteric doctrinesand their political and philosophical implications. The finalchapter of the book summarizes this taxonomy in a master-ful philosophical essay that contests Leo Strauss’ account ofthe role of esotericism in the history of philosophy and itsimplications for modern democratic discourse.

The book’s historical analysis will be challenging tothose unfamiliar with rabbinic literature, but the book isotherwise free of scholarly jargon and can be accessed by awide readership interested in esoteric phenomena in thehistory of religion.

William PlevanPrinceton University

THE POLYPHONY OF JEWISH CULTURE. By Ben-jamin Harshav. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 2007.Pp. vii + 285. $60.00.

Focusing on literary, cultural, and historical aspects ofJewish life in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-

sscentury Eastern Europe, Benjamin Harshav’s collection ofessays is a masterful synthesis of in-depth studies of indi-vidual figures that skillfully raises larger, thematic issuesrelated to the transformation of Jewish society and culture inturn-of-the-century Eastern Europe. The book will be of muchinterest to those working on Jewish and non-Jewish historiesand societies in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe,as well as those interested in the intersection betweenculture and history. It will also be extremely useful for thosesearching for new, accessible material for undergraduatecourses on these and related topics. In addition to pathbreak-ing essays on what Harshav calls “the Modern Jewish Revo-lution” and Jewish multilingualism, the volume also includesdetailed chapters on specific figures that cover the seeminglyendless linguistic and ideological spectrum of East EuropeanJewry. In addition to moving accounts of Hebrew writers likeAgnon, N. Alterman, and Amichai, Harshav also offers keeninsights into the works of Yiddish authors like A. Sutzkeverin Tel Aviv and M. Halpern in New York, as well as the life ofChagall in Vitebsk, St. Petersburg, Paris, Berlin, and Moscow.In each of these cases, Harshav is careful not to lose sight ofthe forest through the trees. The end result is a knowledge-able, readable, and accessible set of essays that lend a senseof intellectual order to the fascinating encounter of Jews inturn-of-the-century Eastern Europe with the modern world.


HOW JEWS BECAME GERMANS: A HISTORY OFCONVERSION AND ASSIMILATION IN BERLIN. ByDeborah Hertz. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.Pp. xii + 276. $38.00.

The story of conversion among early nineteenth-centuryGerman Jews seeking “an entrance ticket to European civili-zation,” as H. Heine famously put it, is a tale that has neededto be told, and D. Hertz makes a compelling storyteller.Despite the broad scope that the title suggests, Hertz focusesprimarily on the period from 1771 to 1833 (especially on thespike in conversion after 1812) and on familiar elites, such asR. Levin Varnhagen, E. Gans, and the children and grandchil-dren of M. Mendelssohn. Nonetheless, Hertz presents acomplex analysis of the stakes of converting and remainingwithin the fold by assessing perceptions of converts, theiropportunities to keep ties with those who remained Jews, andthe writings they themselves produced. She aims to illumi-nate the multiple forces at work behind the often wrenchingdecision to become baptized, both for individuals and forbroader sociological groupings (e.g., along lines of class andgender). While pragmatic reasons—ambition, financial gain,desire for social mobility and marital possibilities—are sig-nificant in explaining why Jews converted, Hertz argues thatthe role of Christian theology and, more often, romanticconcepts of German identity in bringing Jews to the baptis-mal font should not be minimized. Within the Jewish com-munity, conversion was particularly charged because ofagitation for reform of the character of Jewish religious at the


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same time, and the perception that a reformed Judaism wasthe only alternative to baptism. As she discusses in theparticularly thoughtful introduction, the shadow of the even-tual Nuremberg laws, which classified Judaism as a taintedethnicity rather than as a religion, provides an orientation forthis study, the documents for which only exist because of theobsessive genealogical interests of the Nazis.

Mara BenjaminSt. Olaf College

CONTESTED RITUALS: CIRCUMCISION, KOSHERBUTCHERING, AND JEWISH POLITICAL LIFE INGERMANY, 1843-1933. By Robin Judd. Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 2007. Pp. xii + 283. $45.00.

Jewish rites of circumcision and kosher slaughterprovide the main vehicles for investigating the intersectionsamong different aspects of German and German-Jewish lifeduring the nineteenth and early twentieth century, but theheart of Judd’s meticulously researched and complex analy-sis is the last part of the subtitle: the development of Jewishpolitical life in Germany. She argues that these rites becamecatalyzing forces in the development and maturation ofpolitical organizing within the Jewish communities ofGermany as they struggled to defend their practices withinan often (but not always) hostile discursive terrain. Surpris-ingly, the enfranchisement of Jews within broad politicaldebates parallels the waning of Jewish religious practice.Judd examines how and why arguments against these par-ticular Jewish ritual practices and the strategies Jewishparties adopted in response shifted dramatically over thecourse of the century. This study is part cultural history (inJudd’s examination of the associative links in public dis-course between Jews and blood/bloodletting and the role of“debates about the compatibility of Jewish and Germanculture”), part social history (for instance, in the substantia-tion of the claim that “the Ritualfragen of 1867-1880 wereinventions of the middle class”), and part political history (inJudd’s investigation of the role that the different orientationsby the municipal, regional, and state levels of governmentover time were held). Taken together, it forms an impressiveand engaging study.

Mara BenjaminSt. Olaf College

CONTEMPORARY JEWISH PHILOSOPHY: ANINTRODUCTION. By Irene Kajon. London and New York:Routledge, 2006. Pp. 173. $180.00.

This slim volume offers treatments of H. Cohen, F.Rosenzweig, M. Buber, L. Strauss, and E. Levinas. Althougheach chapter is only between twenty and twenty-five pageslong, Kajon’s noble desire is to make her book somethingmore substantial than a reference volume that graduate stu-dents might use to prepare for a comprehensive exam. Herargument is that the canon of twentieth-century Jewish phi-losophy is concerned first and foremost with “the moral dataof everyday life,” which places that canon counter to non-

Jewish interpretations of Kantian and post-Kantian rational-ism. It is a fascinating argument, and this book is one of thevery few in the field of modern Jewish philosophy that issecure enough to feel free to avoid common distinctions suchas holiness/profanity or authenticity/acculturation. Never-theless, for the full power of this argument to be brought out,a much longer text is required. This title is not suitable forundergraduates, who would be thrown into dense thickets ofneo-Kantian thought fewer than fifteen pages in, but everygraduate library with collections in this subject area shouldown this volume, despite its insanely expensive price tag ofover a dollar per page.

Martin KavkaFlorida State University

THE JEWS OF PINSK, 1506-1880. By MordechaiNadav. Edited by Mark Jay Mirsky and Moshe Rosman.Translated by Moshe Rosman and Faigie Tropper. StanfordStudies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stan-ford University Press, 2008. Pp. xlviii + 606, plates, maps.$75.00.

This exceptional volume was generally accepted as thebest history written of an East European Jewish communitywhen it appeared in 1973. This new translation is superb;indeed, due to the careful editing and the patient reexami-nation of all of the sources and references by Moshe Rosman,it is even better than the original. Pinsk was a major Lithua-nian Jewish community (now in Belarus). What makes thisvolume important is the comprehensive picture it gives of allaspects of Jewish life over a period of almost four centuriesand careful documentation. Religious issues receive greatattention and the descriptions of relations between Hasidimand their opponents, for example, are a crucial revision ofsimplistic stereotypes. There are also fascinating discus-sions of the enlightenment movement in Pinsk and its oppo-nents as well as of changing roles and personalities of therabbinate and rabbinic courts. Attention is also given todemography, economics, social dynamics, communal life,and much more. The translators took into account thatreaders of the English edition are not familiar with thedetails of East European Jewish life, and basic concepts areintroduced and explained. Quotations are translated and thetext is well indexed. This book should be required readingfor any serious study of East European Jewish religious andcultural life as well as East European Jewish history ingeneral.


CULTURE FRONT: REPRESENTING JEWS INEASTERN EUROPE. Edited by Benjamin Nathans andGabriella Safran. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia,PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. Pp. viii + 323.$65.00.

This volume focuses on aspects of the changing cul-tural expression of East European Jewry from the seven-


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teenth century until the twentieth. The topics coveredinclude the creation of the Jews’ self-image and a laterconcern for civility, the social meaning of selected modernpopular literary texts, the politics and literary goals ofnoted writers, and with ways of construction—a “modernsecular culture that engages the Jewish past.” This collec-tion is certainly valuable as a reflection of contemporaryresearch on East European Jewish culture. However, sinceunderlying the topics of many of these papers is theconcern for recasting traditional self-definitions and valuesin an increasingly secular environment, much of thematerial in them could be used to reconstruct modernistJewish responses to religion and the process of seculariza-tion. The volume is well indexed and very attractivelyproduced.


THE CRYPTO-JEWISH MASHHADIS: THESHAPING OF RELIGOUS AND COMMUNAL IDEN-TITY IN THEIR JOURNEY FROM IRAN TO NEWYORK. By Hilda Nissimi. Brighton, East Sussex: SussexAcademic Press, 2007. Pp. xv + 180. $67.50.

In 1839, the Jewish community of the holy Shiite city ofMashhad in Iran (about 150 families) was attacked by amob; after the deaths of many Jews, the survivors convertedto Islam. However, they maintained a secret Jewish identityover the generations even after leaving first for Tehran andIsrael and then the US. This story has been well docu-mented, notably in R. Patai’s Jadid al-Islam. Nissimi’sextremely absorbing and sophisticated study goes past theevents and deals with the ways this community maintainedidentity. The book discusses the development of a “secret”faith of these Jews, in light of similar responses among othercrypto-faith communities and how indeed identity wasmaintained. The final section deals with the ways commu-nity was maintained after it became possible to relocate andto return to Judaism starting in the 1920s. At all stages,Nissimi gives due attention to gender roles and to the sig-nificant role of women in maintaining Jewish identity. Thescope, originality, depth of analysis, and the readability ofthis book make it extremely useful not only for those inter-ested in Jews and Jewish religion in Islamic lands but alsofor comparative studies of religious roles of women, phe-nomena such as marranism as well as links between reli-gion and ethnicity.


WOMEN REMAKING AMERICAN JUDAISM. Editedby Riv-Ellen Prell. Detroit: Wayne State University Press,2007. Pp. xii + 331. $25.95.

This collection of articles surveys three aspects of theimpact of feminism on American Judaism: theological/textual innovation, ideological and practical shifts within

the major movements of contemporary Judaism, and thedevelopment of feminist and women-oriented rituals bothwithin and outside of Jewish institutional life. Some surpris-ing and insightful observations emerge from the essays,which are almost uniformly excellent. Of particular interestare a study of the role and impact of gender in M. Kaplan’sshift from “commandment” to “folkway”, the tensionsbetween the historically progressive/protofeminist maleleadership within the reform movement and the Reformlaity, and analysis of the shift in emphasis from the subver-sive and dangerous figure of Lilith to the respected but com-paratively inoffensive figure of Miriam as the figurehead forJewish religious feminism. The trajectory resulting from theintersection of the women’s movement of the early 1970s totoday’s American Judaism in some cases begins withradical critique and gradually becomes more accommodat-ing (and hence, more “successful”). However, the integra-tion of feminism into some segments of religious Jewish lifealso results in multivalence and ambiguity, for instance, inthe meaning of “Shekhina” (immanent aspect of theGodhead) in Jewish renewal. These engaging articlesprovide a much-needed reflection upon a crucial develop-ment in twentieth- and early twenty-first-century AmericanJudaism.

Mara BenjaminYale University

RABBIS AND THEIR COMMUNITY: STUDIES INTHE EASTERN EUROPEAN ORTHODOX RABBIN-ATE IN MONTREAL 1896-1939. By Ira Robinson.Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press, 2007. Pp. xi +173. $34.95.

The dynamics of Canadian Jewish religious life are (andwere) quite different from those of their counterparts to thesouth. Hence, an analysis of Canadian Jewish life provesvaluable both for understanding changes in Canadian Jewishhistory as well as American Jewish history. What is excep-tional about this book is the attention given, not to a specificindividual or political movement, but rather to the immi-grant rabbinate as a whole in an important Jewish commu-nity in a crucial period of adaptation to the “New World.”Robinson offers vivid descriptions of the lives of Yiddish-speaking rabbis. He deals not with theology but real life.Readers who are familiar only with contemporary rabbinicalfunctions will learn a great deal from Robinson’s descriptionof the place of rabbinic supervision of kosher meat in theactivity and economy of rabbis at the beginning of the twen-tieth century. Robinson smoothly weaves together printedand archival sources with oral sources. It also should benoted that the text is well written and the book attractivelyproduced. This original and significant book should beimportant to any collection dealing with American Jewishreligious history.



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LITHUANIA AND RUTHENIA: STUDIES OF ATRANSCULTURAL COMMUNICATION ZONE(15TH-18TH CENTURIES). Edited by Stefan Rohdewald,David Frick, Stefan Wiederkehr. Forschungen zurosteuropäischen Geschichte vol. 71. Weisbaden (Germany):Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007. Pp. 365; plates. 58€.

This volume contains fifteen studies that deal withaspects of transcultural communication, broadly defined, inearly modern Lithuania and Ruthenia (now mostly part ofUkraine). This was a contact zone between Catholicism and(Jewish) Orthodoxy, and the region served as a fascinating“laboratory” for the testing for hypotheses about the natureand potential for interreligious and interethnic contacts.Therefore, an understanding of religious issues is crucial tounderstanding the place and the period (to this day). Thevolume opens with a stimulating essay written by the editorson the topic of transcultural communications, and the othercontributions deal with family issues, church relations, vio-lence, and even art. Almost all of the contributions in thisvolume deal with religious issues, especially with the con-tacts and influences of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Judaismwith and on each other. About half of the articles are inEnglish and the rest are in German. Many are quite innova-tive and creative. Unfortunately, there is no index nor arethere English summaries of the articles in German (nor viceversa). Nonetheless, this book makes a valuable and sophis-ticated addition to any serious research collection dealingwith Eastern Europe.


A MURDER IN LEMBERG: POLITICS, RELIGION,AND VIOLENCE IN MODERN JEWISH HISTORY. ByMichael Stanislawski. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UniversityPress, 2007. Pp. xiii + 147. $22.95.

Stanislawski’s book brings to light a hidden and darkchapter in modern Jewish history: the murder of the ReformRabbi A. Kohn of Lemberg (Lvïv, Lwów) in 1848 by fellowJews. Using long overlooked archival sources from collec-tions in contemporary Ukraine and Israel, Stanislawskiplaces Kohn’s murder within the context of the vituperativedebates over Jewish religious reform that took place in theJewish communities of Lemberg and throughout AustrianGalicia in the middle of the nineteenth century. Kohn and hisplatform of religious reform were vehemently opposed byOrthodox Jewish opponents, some of whom decided to put ahalt to these plans by murdering the reforming rabbi.Through an array of archival sources, Stanislawski recon-structs the rabbi’s murder as well as the police investigation,official trial, and public fallout surrounding the events. Thefinal result is a well-written, fervently argued study of reli-gious reform, ideological conflict, and political violence inone of the most important Jewish communities in the Haps-burg Empire. Stanislawski places the entire affair within thegreater framework of internecine violence in modern Jewishsociety and culture. This book will be of much interest and

use to those working on the history of Central Europe and ofreligious fundamentalism. It will also be of much use tothose teaching courses on Judaism, Hapsburg history, andreligious extremism and violence.


BETWEEN FOREIGNERS AND SHI’IS:NINETEENTH-CENTURY IRAN AND ITS JEWISHMINORITY. By Daniel Tsadik. Stanford Studies in JewishHistory and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford UniversityPress, 2007. Pp. xxi + 295; map. $60.00.

Rarely is a book essential reading both for understand-ing nineteenth century religious history and for contempo-rary politics. This fascinating and original book is one. D.Tsadik, a young and gifted Israeli scholar, writes out of “lovefor Iran and its people,” and succeeds in presenting a verycomplicated topic clearly and in a balanced manner. In doingso, he overturns many stereotypes about tolerance and intol-erance in Shiite Islam. Among the issues covered are theinferior status of Jews in traditional Shiite legal thought,elements that encouraged change in the status of Jews, therole of foreign influence that led to change, the limited effec-tiveness of these changes, and opposition to improvementsin the status of Jews. The book closes with a conclusion thatplaces the Jews in the context of other minority groups inIran. As a whole, the book also goes a long way towardsexplaining Shiite attitudes to Jewish today. For readers unfa-miliar with Jewish life in Iran, this carefully documentedstudy describes not only an unknown world but clarifiesmany issues dealing with religious conflict in general, andanti-Semitism in particular, that invite comparison withother times and places. The glossary and clear style take thenonspecialist reader into consideration. This significant andunique book is equally important for understanding ShiiteIslam as it is for understanding Iranian Judaism, and itshould attract many readers.


IslamMAKING ISLAM DEMOCRATIC: SOCIAL MOVE-MENTS AND THE POST-ISLAMIST TURN. By AsefBayat. Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Soci-eties and Cultures. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,2007. Pp. xxi + 291. Cloth, $55.00; paper, $21.95.

In this nuanced study, Bayat complicates the simplisticquestion of whether “Islam” and “democracy” are compat-ible. He argues convincingly that it is Muslims who animateIslam as a lived religion, and speaking about the “essence” ofIslam is of little use. Ideological critics of Islam and manyMuslim apologists base their views of “Islam” on a literalreading of sacred texts and history, ignoring the fact thatthese sources are subject to multiple interpretations. Bayat


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