This paper analyzes how 'Jewishness' functions as a scapegoat for the apparently unbridgeable gap between spirit and matter in Hegel's social and aesthetic theory. If Hegel accuses 'the Jews' and 'Judaism' of inhabiting a radical divide between the empirical and the spiritual - a divide that coincides with the one between body and body politic - he follows the trajectory of Kant's opposition between autonomy and heteronomy. Kant's notion of freedom describes reason's transcendence of the material world, but this (...) state of autonomy paradoxically depends on the heteronomous force of legal power that enforces a 'Mine and Yours' ownership and property distinction. In Kant's account 'Jewishness' embodies a social way of life founded on superstition (Aberglaube) that enacts the opposite of autonomy and is heteronomously bound to objects of empirical reality, whereas the 'Mine and Yours' ownership and property distinction of a Kantian civil society teaches the foregoing of material goods, if contact with them violates positive law. Developing Kant's idealism, Hegel accuses 'the Jews' of making immediate being absolute. By conflating 'Jewishness' and materialism, Hegel excludes 'the Jews' from his idealist conception of the body politic. Key Words: anti-Semitism • autonomy • body • culture • dialectics • German idealism • Hegel • heteronomy • immutability • Kant. (shrink)

Since the turn of the millennium, rapid advances in technology, globalized markets, and atomized politics instigated in the American and Israeli Jewish communities questions about the morals of food consumption. Contemporary issues such as workers' rights, animal welfare, environmental protection, among others, intersect with basic Jewish food ethics: while Jewish communities respect ancient laws, they also appreciate the importance of progress and look forward to a more repaired world. In these pages, readers will have the unique opportunity to delve into (...) the minds of the brightest Modern Orthodox thinkers of the current generation. The contributions contained in Kashrut & Jewish Food Ethics are rich in detail and offer new paradigms for the practical observance of kashrut that have swirled in thec ether for generations. (shrink)

[1] Ṭohorah, yiḥud, hanhagat ha-bayit --.

The Hebrew term kosher means ‘fit’ or ‘proper’ and it traditionally signifies foods that conform to Jewish dietary law. This article explores how kosher is understood, practised and contested in contemporary Denmark. In recent years, the rules regulating kosher consumption have been supplemented by elaborate rules concerning globalised mass production, which have had an impact on the way people handle questions of kashrut. During the same period, global markets for kosher have proliferated; this article explores the everyday kosher consumption (...) among Jews in Denmark in the light of these transformations. Everyday kosher consumption among a minority group such as Jews in Denmark is not well understood, and I argue that globalised forms of regulation increasingly condition this type of consumption. Even though Denmark is a small and relatively secular country and Jews comprise only about 7,000 individuals, kosher production and regulation have national economic significance. Methodologically, I build on ethnographic data from contemporary Denmark, that is, participant observation and interviews. (shrink)

According to Jewish dietary laws, known as Kashrut, the meat and milk mixing in the same meal is prohibited. This article examines this prohibition from a theological and modern medical viewpoint.

In this article, I aim to contribute to the remedy of the current under-theorization of discourse on food ethics and politics from the perspective of the Islamic food tradition by proposing a formulation of an Islamic conception of food justice that extends the religious discourse on food beyond that of dietary laws. The conception of Islamic food justice that I propose makes explicit the connections between the religious, ethical, and political discourses on food. First, I argue that the similarity (...) between the central question of the secular approach to food ethics and that of the modern interpretation of the religious approach to food is best understood as a consequence of the shared assumption of the modern concept of subjectivity. Second, I argue that problematizing the concept of subjectivity that underlies both the secular and the religious approaches to food ethics is key to challenging the boundaries of the current disciplinary-bound discourses as it would allow for a reformulation of the central question beyond that of individual identity and extend the religious discourse on food to the realm on politics. (shrink)

Jews and Islamic Law in Early 20th-Century Yemen. By Mark S. Wagner. Indiana Series in Sephardi and Mizrahi Studies. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015. Pp. xi + 208. $75 ; $29.

A myth exists that Jews can embrace the cultural components of Judaism without appreciating the legal aspects of the Jewish tradition. This myth suggests that law and culture are independent of one another. In reality, however, much of Jewish culture has a basis in Jewish law. Similarly, Jewish law produces Jewish culture. Roberta Rosenthal Kwall develops and applies a cultural analysis paradigm to the Jewish tradition that departs from the understanding of Jewish law solely as the embodiment of Divine (...) command. (shrink)

This paper examines the position of international human rights law towards missionary or proselytizing activities with a special focus on the American context. By evaluating UN legal acts such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1960 Arcot Krishnaswami Study and the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief and the American Convention of Human Rights, it investigates the extent to which such activities fall within the scope of (...) the right to free speech and to freedom of religion for religious organizations. This is exemplified by looking at two Evangelical religious organizations founded for the purpose of luring away groups of believers from their original religious communities: “Mission to Amish People”, targeting the Amish People, and “Jews for Jesus”, aimed at the Jewish community. The clash of one religious community which considers mission a fundamental element of its religion with a religious community who is highly skeptical about mission constitute the extreme test case of the right to free speech and to corporate freedom of religion. Given the highly various importance which mission can play in different religions, the article suggests to solve each case individually by carefully examining the content of each religious doctrine. (shrink)

Throughout history the image of the non-Jew in Judaism has profoundly influenced the way in which Jews interact with non-Jews. It has also shaped the understanding that Jews have of their own identity, as it determines just what distinguishes them from the non-Jews around them. A crucial element in this is the concept of Noahide law, understood by the ancient rabbis and subsequent Jewish thinkers as incumbent upon all humankind, unlike the full 613 divine commandments of (...) the Torah, which are incumbent on Jews alone. The approach adopted in this now classic study is to consider the history of the idea of Noahide law, and to show how the concept is relevant to practical discussions of the halakhah pertaining to non-Jews and to relations between Jews and non-Jews. The seven chapters that make up the first part of the study examine each of the Noahide laws in turn, with a view to showing their halakhic development in the rabbinic sources, in the codes, and in the responsa literature. The discussion draws primarily on classical texts by traditional commentators as they attempt to deal with living issues from the rabbinic world as equally vital concerns in their own time. The second part deals with the theory of Noahide law, concluding with a consideration of why it is an appropriate starting point for Jewish philosophy today. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to comprehensively review studies that have examined the relation between diet and childhood obesity. The review specifically considers the roles of total energy intake and energy density; dietary composition; individual foods, food groups, and dietary patterns; beverage consumption; and eating behaviors. The paper also discusses methodological considerations and future research directions and concludes by summarizing the evidence presented and highlighting the ethical issues surrounding providing dietary advice.

The Institute of Medicine’s 2005 publication, Dietary Supplements: A Framework for Evaluating Safety, is authoritative and thorough, and thus representative of other reports by the Institute of Medicine. What makes this report particularly interesting, however, is the rich political subtext that exists in the interstices of the report, popping up here and there in brief comments and barely suppressed yelps of exasperation. To understand this context, it is useful to reflect for a moment on the special nature of the (...) IOM and its relationship to government.IOM is part of the National Academy of Sciences, and is a private, non-governmental organization that does not receive direct federal funding for its work. Rather, IOM studies are often funded by contract with governmental entities that request reports on particular topics. As a case in point, the dietary supplement study was requested and paid for by the FDA. (shrink)

Philosophers have long struggled to reconcile Martin Heidegger's involvement in Nazism with his status as one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century. The recent publication of his Black Notebooks has reignited fierce debate on the subject. These thousand-odd pages of jotted observations profoundly challenge our image of the quiet philosopher's exile in the Black Forest, revealing the shocking extent of his anti-Semitism for the first time. For much of the philosophical community, the Black Notebooks have been either used (...) to discredit Heidegger or seen as a bibliographical detail irrelevant to his thought. Yet, in this new book, renowned philosopher Donatella Di Cesare argues that Heidegger's "metaphysical anti-Semitism" was a central part of his philosophical project. Within the context of the Nuremberg race laws, Heidegger felt compelled to define Jewishness and its relationship to his concept of Being. Di Cesare shows that Heidegger saw the Jews as the agents of a modernity that had disfigured the spirit of the West. In a deeply disturbing extrapolation, he presented the Holocaust as both a means for the purification of Being and the Jews' own "self-destruction": a process of death on an industrialized scale that was the logical conclusion of the acceleration in technology they themselves had brought about. Situating Heidegger's anti-Semitism firmly within the context of his thought, this groundbreaking work will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy and history as well as the many readers interested in Heidegger's life, work, and legacy. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the history of Italian Jews from the Emancipation to the racial laws of 1938 and their present-day attitudes to Judaism and the State of Israel. My aim is to suggest how the policy of social integration enabled Italian Jews to construct a new identity without losing their ancestral heritage. The example of Italian Jewry is relevant to understanding the growing need in today‘s European Union—now comprising 27 countries with different languages, cultures, and values—of (...) revising the concept of national identity and of exploring ways of constructing a new European identity. (shrink)

Childhood obesity is a serious problem for increasing numbers of children around the world. According to the International Obesity Task Force, 1 of 10 schoolaged children worldwide is overweight or obese, a number totaling 155 million; of these, 2-3% are obese. Prevalence is highest in the Americas and Europe, followed by the Near/Middle East, with smaller but growing numbers in the Asia-Pacific and Sub-Saharan regions of the world.In the United States, which provides the data for much of this report, prevalence (...) continues to rise. The most recent nationally representative data indicate that 33.6% of individuals aged 2-19 years were overweight and 17.1% were at risk for overweight in 2003-2004, compared to 28.2% and 13.9% in 1999-2000, respectively. In this age group, the prevalence of overweight or at risk for overweight was highest among Mexican Americans, followed by Non-Hispanic blacks and Non-Hispanic whites, and a higher percentage of males were overweight compared to females. (shrink)

Jesus the Jew is the primary signifier of Christianity's indebtedness to Judaism. This connection is both historical and continuous. In this book, Barbara Meyer shows how Christian memory, as largely intertwined with Jewish memory, provides a framework to examine the theological dimensions of historical Jesus research. She explores the topics that are central to the Jewishness of Jesus, such as the Christian relationship to law, and otherness as a Christological category. Through the lenses of the otherness of the Jewish Jesus (...) for contemporary Christians, she also discusses circumcision, natality, vulnerability, and suffering in dialogue with thinkers seldom drawn into Jewish-Christian discourse, notably Hannah Arendt, Julia Kristeva, Martha Nussbaum and Adi Ophir. Meyer demonstrates how the memory of Jesus' Jewishness is a key to reconfiguring contemporary challenges to Christian thought, such as particularity and otherness, law and ethics after the Shoah, human responsibility, and divine vulnerability. (shrink)

Erasmus of Rotterdam was the greatest Christian humanist scholar of the Northern European Renaissance, a correspondent of Sir Thomas More and many other learned men of his time, known to his contemporaries and to posterity for subtlety of his thought and the depth of his learning. He was also, according to some modern writers, an anti-Semite. In this complete analysis of all of Erasmus' writings on Jews and Judaism, Shimon Markish asserts that the accusation cannot be sustained. For Markish, (...) to ask whether Erasmus was a friend or enemy of the Jews is to ask a modern question of a sixteenth-century man, whose attitude can best be called "asemitism." Erasmus' chief preoccupation was with the future of "the true philosophy of Christ"; he had little interest in the Jewish community of his own time. Erasmus and the Jews discusses Erasmus' critique of Mosaic law and his view of the conflict between "Judaism" as legalistic morality and Jesus' teaching; his judgment on the Pharisees of Jesus' time; his emphasis on the importance of the study of Hebrew; and his opinions of sixteenth-century Jews. This meticulous analysis reveals an Erasmus who defended his vision of true piety by rejecting "Judaizing" Christians more than Jews and who saw the Old Testament as integral to the Christian worldview. As a Christian, he regretted nonbelief and pitied unbelievers, without vicious hostility toward any single people. His theological opposition to a form of religious thought which he identified with Judaism was not translated into crude prejudice against actual Jews. In general, his calm consideration of the strange and the foreign and his willingness to restrict his judgments to the philosophical realm were, Markish argues, early and significant steps toward enlightened toleration. Markish's discussion of Erasmus is supplemented with an Afterword by theologian and philosopher Arthur A. Cohen, who offers a variant interpretation of Erasmus' writings and attitudes. The juxtaposed arguments of the two scholars make this an especially illuminating work for any student of Erasmus and his influence. Erasmus and the Jews also gives a necessary clarity to our understanding of the meaning of anti-Semitism and the history of religious toleration. Markish's profound knowledge of Erasmus allows him to demonstrate the fundamental importance of putting arguments and terminology in the context of a thinker's work and his own time. (shrink)

In the first century, Jews were expelled from Rome on various occasions. Ancient literary sources offer contradictory information on these expulsions. As a result, scholars have offered different reconstructions of what really happened. In contrast to earlier scholarship on the subject, this article seeks to place the expulsions of Jews from first-century Rome into the larger framework of Roman policy toward both Jews and other non-Roman peoples. It is argued that the decision to banish Jews from (...) Rome resulted from pragmatic and not from specifically anti-Jewish considerations: Roman magistrates just wanted to maintain law and order. It is then suggested that the reasons underlying the decision to expel Jews from Rome were essentially the same as those triggering expulsions of other groups such as Isis worshipers, devotees of Bacchus, or astrologers. Such evidence serves to illustrate the two main theses of this article. First, it is argued that in late Republican and early Imperial times, Rome never developed a systematic "Jewish policy." During this period, Rome rather responded to situations when confronted with disputes over Jewish rights. This conclusion then serves to bolster the second thesis of this paper, namely that in the first century, Rome never pursued a consistent policy of tolerance toward its Jewish subjects. (shrink)

The past century has seen various studies on the nature of Matthew’s community, and conclusions are still being debated. The study on which this article is based acknowledges the past studies, but further proposes that the nature of the Matthean community was one of coexistence. The Matthean community implied in the book of Matthew coexisted in three ways. Firstly, Jews and Gentiles coexisted within the community: the Jewish–Christian-centred community had started to accept Gentiles and became a community where Gentiles (...) and Jews lived together. Secondly, the community was in a state where both the Jewish law and the teachings of Jesus were followed. Finally, the community tended to set both Jews and Gentiles as targets for the mission. This means that there was missionary coexistence within the community. These three main reasons are the basis for the claim that the Matthean community maintained the nature of coexistence. (shrink)

Manetti's Latin treatise Adversus Iudaeos et Gentes (Against the Jews and Gentiles) offers a polemical defense of the Christian religion. This volume, which includes the first four books,surveys human history from the Creation to the life,teaching, and resurrection of Christ. Book I begins with the creation and fall of man in the Biblical account. There follows a long digression adversus gentes (the Gentiles, i.e., pagans), which reviews central points of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and religion, and censures the (...) ancients for their senseless doctrines and bloody rites. Manetti then returns to the Jews, whose beliefs and practices are praised from Abraham to Moses. During their centuries of "true" piety, Manetti calls the chosen people "Hebrews." But from the time of the Exodus onwards, he censures them as "Jews" because they observe the absurd and cruel practices of Pentateuchal legislation, which he views as analogous to pagan rites. Manetti stresses several themes in Jewish history: the early development of the concept of righteousness, the Exodus, the Mosaic Law and its inadequacy--thus providing a "preparation for the Gospel" in Eusebius' sense. The next three books provide a synoptic biography of Jesus in three stages. Book II describes the life of Christ up to the raising of Lazarus; Book III relates his teaching, and Book IV offers an account of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom holds that Judaism is indifferent or even suspiciously hostile to the visual arts due to the Second Commandment's prohibition on creating "graven images," the dictates of monotheism, and historical happenstance. This intellectual history of medieval and modern Jewish attitudes toward art and representation overturns the modern assumption of Jewish iconophobia that denies to Jewish culture a visual dimension. Kalman Bland synthesizes evidence from medieval Jewish philosophy, mysticism, poetry, biblical commentaries, travelogues, and law, concluding that premodern Jewish intellectuals held (...) a positive, liberal understanding of the Second Commandment and did, in fact, articulate a certain Jewish aesthetic. He draws on this insight to consider modern ideas of Jewish art, revealing how they are inextricably linked to diverse notions about modern Jewish identity that are themselves entwined with arguments over Zionism, integration, and anti-Semitism. Through its use of the past to illuminate the present and its analysis of how the present informs our readings of the past, this book establishes a new assessment of Jewish aesthetic theory rooted in historical analysis. Authoritative and original in its identification of authentic Jewish traditions of painting, sculpture, and architecture, this volume will ripple the waters of several disciplines, including Jewish studies, art history, medieval and modern history, and philosophy. (shrink)

Sam Lebens’ The Principles of Judaism is an extraordinary book in its rigor and richness. It is a sophisticated examination of three central propositions, which Lebens maintains, are the fundamental doctrines that “can make sense of continued commitment to an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle.” (Lebens, 273). He presents and discusses the following three propositions: 1) The universe is the creation of one God; 2) The Torah is a divine system of laws and wisdom, revealed by the creator of the universe; and, (...) 3) The creator exercises provi-dential care over his creation, manifest in the creator’s continued sustenance of the world, reward and punishment for human action, and in the promise of ultimate salvation. (Lebens, 3).Lebens presents the principles as they were variously explicated and de-fended in key Jewish texts written by the most influential Jewish thinkers; he then turns to search for “the most plausible rendering of this set of prin-ciples...” (Lebens, 274). After so doing, he specifies those doctrinal compo-nents among them, which he deems necessary “for making sense of commit-ment to Judaism” (Lebens, 275), identifying a “commitment to Judaism” with being “faithful to the tenets of Judaism” in the sense of having faith in them:To the extent that these principles are necessary for making sense of commitment to Judaism, I argue that you cannot be considered faithful to the tenets of Judaism without holding an attitude of faith toward some element of each of the three principles... (Lebens 275).The distance between Lebens’ philosophical and religious outlook and pre-suppositions, as they show themselves in his Principles of Judaism, and my own is great. I shall start with a critique of Lebens’ reduction of Judaism to so-called Orthodox Judaism, and argue that Lebens has no justification for characterizing the principles that he identifies, as the “principles of Judaism” without qualification. I shall then turn to argue that there are grounds for questioning whether the principles that Lebens identifies can be understood as the principles that so-called “Orthodox Jews”, too, have faith in. It is, how-ever, clear that the utterances that Lebens discusses do play a central role within the life of committed Jews. I shall end by proposing that we adopt the later Wittgenstein’s philosophical method for making perspicuous their meaning and their different roles. (shrink)

This essay portrays the “law of the good neighbor” as the principle of the Warburg Library's collections — as the argument for their expansion and coherence, as well as the principle governing the scholarly practice inspired by the Warburg Institute and “Warburg school” of cultural analysis. The essay includes a tribute to Anne Marie Meyer (1919 – 2004), Warburg scholar and long-time affiliate of the Institute, with special emphasis on the question that she uniquely raised: “Exactly what was the relation (...) between [Aby] Warburg's research on paganism in the Renaissance and his meditations and fears about Judaism (and Jews)?”. (shrink)

Can one expect religious minorities to be committed to a liberal democratic state? Can a democratic, Western, liberal state be open and safe for all – both ultra-orthodox and secular alike – and count on the allegiance of all? Does this require that religious minorities ‘hide’ their religious identity and conform to prevailing laws and customs and express their religious views and practices only in the privacy of their own homes? Or should minorities request that they receive public recognition? Ought (...) such minorities tolerate opposing views and practices on matters that are central to their faith, or should they request that these are not expressed in public? In this paper, I discuss and evaluate four possible responses to these questions. (shrink)

Levinas seamlessly unites philosophy and religion via ethics. By doing so he satisfies philosophy's quest for justification by finding it neither in epistemology nor aesthetics (nor in an escapist "fundamentalism") but in the responsibility of each person for each other and for all others. That is to say, the "ground" of meaning emerges neither in intellect nor imagination but in the moral responsibilities one person has for another and, beyond these already infinite obligations, in the justice - law and equality (...) - that such responsibilities require and engender. All of this is at the same time a consistent expression, indeed a profoundly mature expression of the ethical monotheist vision of traditional rabbinic Judaism and of non-mythological religious consciousness more generally. /// O pensamento de Emmanuel Levinas induz uma união perfeita entre Filosofia e Religião mediante a Ética. Nesta medida, o filósofo dá resposta à pergunta da Filosofia pela sua própria justificação, justificação essa que ele não encontra nem na epistemologia nem na estética (nem em qualquer forma de escapismo fundamentalista), mas na responsabilidade de cada pessoa por cada um e por todos. Or a isto equivale a dizerque o "fundamento" para o sentido não emerge nem do intelecto nem da imaginação, mas sim da responsabilidade moral que nos obriga a cada um diante dos outros e, para lá destas obrigações infinitas, nos compromete com a justiça - representada no princípio da legalidade e da equidade - requerida e engendrada por essas mesmas responsabilidades. Tudo isto, para o autor, é ao mesmo tempo expressão consistente, de facto, uma expressão profundamente madura da visão ética monoteísta do Judaísmo rabínico e, de uma forma mais geral, de toda a forma de consciência religiosa não mitológica. (shrink)

From the Nuremberg Trials to contemporary human rights, Jews have long played prominent roles in the making of international law. But the actual ties between Jewish heritage and legal thought remain a subject of mystery and conjecture even among specialists. This volume of biographical studies takes a unique interdisciplinary approach, pairing historians and legal scholars to explore how their Jewish identities and experiences shaped their legal thought and activism. Using newly-discovered sources and sophisticated interpretative methods, this book offers an (...) alternative history of twentieth-century international legal profession – and a new model to the emerging field of international legal biography. (shrink)

On December 30, 2003, the FDA announced that it will publish a rule banning sales of ephedra - a dietary supplement often utilized for weight loss, increased energy, and enhanced athletic performance - because it poses an unreasonable health risk.The ban will be issued under the auspices of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, in response to a process that began in June of 1997, when the FDA (...) first proposed a mandatory warning statement on dietary supplements containing ephedra. FDAs analysis of the scientific evidence has led it to conclude that dietary supplements containing ephedrine alkaloids present an unreasonable risk of illness or injury and are therefore adulterated under Section 402 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act? (shrink)

Are the commands and exhortations of the Lord Jesus directed to his disciples only or are they directed to all mankind? The question arises from an examination of traditional Jewish teaching, around the time of Jesus's life in Palestine, that Jewish Law applies only to Jews. Seeing that there is no way of knowing what God requires of humans unless he reveals his requirements, and seeing that God's revealing of any requirements he has made has been carried out by (...) Jesus the Christ and, further, that the best evidence for his teachings are the accounts of his teaching in the New Testament, this article examines it and concludes that his Law applies only to his disciples. (shrink)

Abelard’s most famous spokesman for the ancient and abiding moral and religious worth of the Law of Moses is probably the character of the Jew, inventedfor one of two fictional dialogues in the Collationes. The equally fictive Philosopher, a rationalist theist who gets the last word in his exchange with the Jew, condemns the Law as a useless addition to the natural law, a threat to genuine morality with a highly dubious claim to divine origin. The Philosopher’s condemnation, however, does (...) not go unanswered. Abelard himself, writing in his own voice in two major treatments of the Law , defends the ancient worth of the Law as a revolution in moral understanding and a potential guarantor of salvation. The Law is just and rational, he argues, in every one of its precepts, even when interpreted according to the letter. As such, the letter of the Law has been and ought to be retained in Christianity: its moral precepts are binding everywhere and always; its non-moral precepts are binding, when, in the changing circumstances of the Church, they are found to be useful and not conducive to scandal. (shrink)

Abelard’s most famous spokesman for the ancient and abiding moral and religious worth of the Law of Moses is probably the character of the Jew, invented for one of two fictional dialogues in the Collationes. The equally fictive Philosopher, a rationalist theist who gets the last word in his exchange with the Jew, condemns the Law as a useless addition to the natural law, a threat to genuine morality with a highly dubious claim to divine origin. The Philosopher’s condemnation, however, (...) does not go unanswered. Abelard himself, writing in his own voice in two major treatments of the Law, defends the ancient worth of the Law as a revolution in moral understanding and a potential guarantor of salvation. The Law is just and rational, he argues, in every one of its precepts, even when interpreted according to the letter. As such, the letter of the Law has been and ought to be retained in Christianity: its moral precepts are binding everywhere and always; its non-moral precepts are binding, when, in the changing circumstances of the Church, they are found to be useful and not conducive to scandal. (shrink)

Childhood obesity is in important respects a result of legal policies that influence both dietary intake and physical activity. The law must shift focus away from individual risk factors alone and seek instead to promote situational and environmental influences that create an atmosphere conducive to health. To attain this goal, advocates should embrace a population-wide model of public health, and policymakers must critically examine the fashionable rhetoric of consumer choice.

Islam prides itself on being "the religion of facility". Muslim sources are unanimous in assigning to Judaism the role of counterweight in this regard, pronouncing it a system of "burdens and shackles" by which the Jews "oppressed their souls". This neat polarity both fueled, and was the product of, a fascinating reciprocal process: at the same time that sharī'a was being created in the negative image of halakha, halakha was being retroactively re-imagined by Muslim jurists and exegetes as the (...) antipode of sharī'a. Although scholarly studies of the intertexture of Islam and Judaism abound, few have touched upon the Muslim tradition's perception and utilization of Jewish law, and none has done so in depth. This book aims to fill that lacuna and further our understanding of the age-old embrace and grapple between the two faiths. (shrink)

Are mysticism and morality compatible or at odds with one another? If mystical experience embraces a form of non-dual consciousness, then in such a state of mind, the regulative dichotomy so basic to ethical discretion would seemingly be transcended and the very foundation for ethical decisions undermined. Venturing Beyond - Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism is an investigation of the relationship of the mystical and moral as it is expressed in the particular tradition of Jewish mysticism known as the (...) Kabbalah. The particular themes discussed include the denigration of the non-Jew as the ontic other in kabbalistic anthropology and the eschatological crossing of that boundary anticipated in the instituition of religious conversion; the overcoming of the distinction between good and evil in the mystical experience of the underlying unity of all things; divine suffering and the ideal of spiritual poverty as the foundation for transmoral ethics and hypernomian lawfulness. (shrink)

Are mysticism and morality compatible or at odds with one another? If mystical experience embraces a form of non-dual consciousness, then in such a state of mind, the regulative dichotomy so basic to ethical discretion would seemingly be transcended and the very foundation for ethical decisions undermined. Venturing Beyond - Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism is an investigation of the relationship of the mystical and moral as it is expressed in the particular tradition of Jewish mysticism known as the (...) Kabbalah. The particular themes discussed include the denigration of the non-Jew as the ontic other in kabbalistic anthropology and the eschatological crossing of that boundary anticipated in the instituition of religious conversion; the overcoming of the distinction between good and evil in the mystical experience of the underlying unity of all things; divine suffering and the ideal of spiritual poverty as the foundation for transmoral ethics and hypernomian lawfulness. (shrink)

The ancient practice of metzitzah b'peh, direct oral suction, is still practiced by ultra-Orthodox Jews as part of the religious rite of male newborn circumcision. Between 2000 and 2011, 11 children have died in New York and New Jersey, following infection by herpes simplex virus, presumably from infected practitioners. The City responded by requiring signed parental consent before oral suction, with parents being warned of the dangers of the practice. This essay argues that informed consent is not an appropriate (...) response to this problem. An outright ban would a better response to a practice that is dangerous to children, but might prove unconstitutional under New York State law. (shrink)

"This work deals wth three main topics: a. Maimonidean studies, b. aspects of medieval rabbinic literature, and c. intellectual history of the Jews in southern France (Provence) during the Middle Ages."--Back cover.