Tag Archives: Ashkenaz

(Dribs & Drabs) Canon & Translation (Ashkenaz)

Posted on March 24, 2019 by zjb

Scholars in the field call upon Jewish Studies and Jewish Philosophy and Thought to pay attention to the thought world of Eastern European Jews, what I have been calling Ashkenaz, and they complain about the ignorance of their colleagues who … Continue reading →

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Questions about Ashkenaz & Gender

Posted on March 22, 2019 by zjb

Responding to colleague-friend-comrades calling for more serious look at East European Jewish history and culture, and with my own stakes in religion, here is another thought about what I’d like to call Ashkenaz. I’m also responding to colleague-friend-comrades Laura Levitt … Continue reading →

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An Open Question Re: Eastern Europe and Contemporary Jewish Thought and Philosophy (Ashkenaz)

Posted on March 19, 2019 by zjb

Looking for help from modern Jewish Studies and Jewish philosophy and thought people: I’m trying to think thru challenges posted by Eliyahu Stern and Shaul Magid that we need to take into account the thought-worlds of East European Jews into … Continue reading →

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Anti-Lachrymose Jewish History = A Lachrymose Theological & Reactionary Object (Salo Baron)

Posted on December 26, 2018 by zjb

Jewish Studies and the study of Jewish History in America begin to show their age. The older they get the weirder they look in retrospect.  Told as an origin story, one of the great founding moments of the discipline in … Continue reading →

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Affect, Sentiment & Other Aspects of Rabbinic Theology (Solomon Schechter)

Posted on December 27, 2017 by zjb

Somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area, I must have bought the handsome 1961 paperback edition of Solomon Schechter’s 1909 Aspects of Rabbinic Theology from a used book shop when I was in graduate school. It then sat on my … Continue reading →

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(Moshe Chayyim Luzzatto) Anthroposophy (The Way of God)

Posted on October 19, 2015 by zjb

For years on the ten days between Rosh Ha’Shanah and Yom Kippur, I read Moshe Chayyim Luzzatos’ classic ethical treatise, Path of the Just (Mesilat Ha’Yesharim). This year I picked up the Hebrew-English edition of The Way of God (Derekh … Continue reading →

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(Out of the German Ghetto) Virtual Modernity & The Vilna Gaon (Eliyahu Stern) (The Genius)

Posted on January 9, 2014 by zjb

Like many, I was immediately surprised by Eli Stern’s thesis placing the Vilna Gaon (the Gra) as a cornerstone to the modern Jewish project. The thesis is based on a multiple modernities template, indicating that modernity took different forms in … Continue reading →

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