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　　WITH MORE THAN 100 BLACK-AND-WHITE ILLUSTRATIONSTHROUGHOUT
　　
　　Who are “the Jews”? Scattered over much of the world throughoutmost of their three-thousand-year-old history, are they one peopleor many? How do they resemble and how do they differ from Jews inother places and times? What have their relationships been to thecultures of their neighbors?
　　

WITH MORE THAN 100 BLACK-AND-WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS
THROUGHOUT 
　　 
　　Who are “the Jews”? Scattered over much of the world throughout
most of their three-thousand-year-old history, are they one people
or many? How do they resemble and how do they differ from Jews in
other places and times? What have their relationships been to the
cultures of their neighbors? 
　　 
　　To address these and similar questions, twenty-three of the
finest scholars of our day—archaeologists, cultural historians,
literary critics, art historians , folklorists, and historians of
relation, all affiliated with major academic institutions in the
United States, Israel, and France—have contributed their insight to
Cultures of the Jews. The premise of their endeavor is that
although Jews have always had their own autonomous traditions,
Jewish identity cannot be considered immutable, the fixed product
of either ancient ethnic or religious origins. Rather, it has
shifted and assumed new forms in response to the cultural
environment in which the Jews have lived. 
　　 
　　Building their essays on specific cultural artifacts—a poem, a
letter, a traveler’s account, a physical object of everyday or
ritual use—that were made in the period and locale they study, the
contributors describe the cultural interactions among different
Jews—from rabbis and scholars to non-elite groups, including
women—as well as between Jews and the surrounding non-Jewish
world. 
　　 
　　Part One, “Mediterranean Origins,” describes the concept of the
“People” or “Nation” of Israel that emerges in the Hebrew Bible and
the culture of the Israelites in relation to that of the Canaanite
groups. It goes on to discuss Jewish cultures in the Greco-Roman
world, Palestine during the Byzantine period, Babylonia, and Arabia
during the formative years of Islam. 
　　 
　　Part Two, “Diversities of Diaspora,” illuminates Judeo-Arabic
culture in the Golden Age of Islam, Sephardic culture as it bloomed
first if the Iberian Peninsula and later in Amsterdam, the
Jewish-Christian symbiosis in Ashkenazic Europe and in the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the culture of the Italian Jews of
the Renaissance period, and the many strands of folklore, magic,
and material culture that run through diaspora Jewish
history. 
　　 
　　Part Three, “Modern Encounters,” examines communities, ways of
life, and both high and fold culture in Western, Central, and
Eastern Europe, the Ladino Diaspora, North Africa and the Middle
East, Ethiopia, Zionist Palestine and the State of Israel, and,
finally, the United States. 
　　 
　　Cultures of the Jews is a landmark, representing the fruits of
the present generation of scholars in Jewish studies and offering a
new foundation upon which all future research into Jewish history
will be based. Its unprecedented interdisciplinary approach will
resonate widely among general readers and the scholarly community,
both Jewish and non-Jewish, and it will change the terms of the
never-ending debate over what constitutes Jewish identity.

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CULTURES OF THE JEWS(ISBN=9780805241310)

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