Judaism and Crisis

In their long history, Jews encountered political, social, cultural, and religious crises which threatened not only their very existence but Jewish identity as well. Examples for such crises include the Babylonian Exile, the so-called Hellenistic Religious reforms, the first and second Jewish war, the inquisition, and the Shoah, but also the encounter of modernity or socio-economic developments. Political, cultural, and religious crises did not coin Jewish culture, thought, and religion but forced Jews from the very beginnings of Judaism until today to rethink and shape their Jewish identity anew. This volume asks how Jews coped with events that threatened Jewish existence, culture, and religion and how they responded to them. Each crisis was different in nature and evoked hence different developments in Jewish culture, thought, and religion.

1;Front Cover;1 2;Title Page;4 3;Copyright;5 4;Table of Contents;6 5;Introduction;8 6;Part ICrisis in the History ofPreexilic, Exilic, andSecond Temple Judaism;24 7;Heinz-Josef Fabry Wehe Ninive, du Stadt der Blutschuld (Nah 3,1): Die assyrische Krise in Israel-Juda;26 8;Rainer Kessler Differenz und Integration: Reaktionen auf die soziale Krise des 8. Jahrhunderts;50 9;Eric M. Meyers The Babylonian Exile Revisited: Demographics and the Emergence of the Canon of Scripture;62 10;Beate Ego The Hellenistic Crisis as Reflected by the Animal Apocalypse: Aetiological and Eschatological Aspects;76 11;George J. Brooke Crisis Without, Crisis Within: Changes and Developments within the Dead Sea Scrolls Movement;90 12;Leo G. Perdue Greek and Barbarian: Anti-Judaism in Greek and Roman Alexandria;110 13;Géza G. Xeravits Conflicting Ideas about the Temple in 2 Baruch 4 and 6 ;154 14;Katell Berthelot Is God Unfair? The Fourth Book of Ezra as a Response to the Crisis of 70 C. E.;166 15;William Horbury The Uprisings under Trajan and Roman-Jewish Relations;184 16;Roland Deines How Long? Gods Revealed Schedule for Salvation and the Outbreak of the Bar Kokhba Revolt;202 17;Part IIAn Outlook:Other Crisis in Jewish History;236 18;Carol Meyers Flour for Bread: Did New Technology of the Roman Period Cause a Crisis for Jewish Women?;238 19;Felicia Waldman Impact of the 1492 Spanish Expulsion on Jewish Thought: The Opposite Cases of Isaac Luria and Shabbatai Zvi;260 20;Darryl J. Gless Conversions in Shakespeare: Shylock and Others;274 21;Klaus Davidowicz Moses Mendelssohn und die jüdische Tradition;290 22;Frank Stern Visualisierung des Jüdischen in Krisenzeiten: Imagination und Ambivalenz von Erinnern und Vergessen im deutschsprachigen Film;306 23;Yaakov Ariel Crisis and Renewal: From Crushed Hasidism to Neo-Hasidic Revival and Outreach;318 24;Index ;338 25;Back Cover;342