Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Academic Studies Press is pleased to announce that Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue: Essays in Jewish-Christian Relations by David Berger is now available. Please visit our website atwww.academicstudiespress.com for more information about this book and the other titles we publish. We work with all library wholesalers, suppliers and book distributors. If you are interested in ordering directly, please feel free to contact our sales department at sa...@academicstudiespress.com and mention that you are a member of Hasafran for your discount. We look forward to hearing from you! Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue: Essays in Jewish-Christian Relations By David Berger ISBN 978-1-934843-76-5 (cloth) $45.00 / £37.50 350 pp., June 2010 Series: Judaism and Jewish Life Topic Areas: Comparative Religion, Interfaith Dialogue Level: Academic Bibliographic Data: 1. Judaism Relations Christianity. 2. Christianity and other religions Judaism. 3. Christianity and anti-Semitism History. 4. Anti-Semitism History. I. Title. Summary: Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue follows the interaction between Jews and Christians through the ages in all its richness, complexity, and diversity. This collection of essays analyzes anti-Semitism, perceptions of the Other, and religious debates in the Middle Ages and proceed to consider modern and contemporary interactions, which are marked by both striking continuity and profound difference. These include controversies among historians, the promise and challenge of interfaith dialogue, and the explosive exchanges surrounding Mel Gibson's film on the Passion. This volume will engage scholars, students, and any reader intrigued by one of the longest and most fraught intergroup relationships in history. Author: David Berger (Ph.D. Columbia University, 1970) is a former President of the Association for Jewish Studies and Ruth and I. Lewis Professor and Dean at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University. Reviews: "Few bring to the subject of Jewish-Christian relations the singular blend of insight, erudition, and passion that characterizes David Berger's Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue; and few collections of essays constitute as coherent and accessible an introduction to a difficult subject as this volume certainly does. Professor Berger's studies of the major issues in the encounter between Jews and Christians during the Middle Ages, in the way that modern writers have understood that encounter, and in that encounter's enduring impact on Jewish-Christian interaction today reflect keen critical scholarship on the one hand, and a resolute commitment to Jewish tradition on the other. Without compromising either, Berger boldly addresses the thorniest, most sensitive of issues from the Crusades to the blood libels to the supersessionism of the present pope with candor, fairness, and wit. No reader, of whatever faith or critical disposition, will leave this book unrewarded." -- Jeremy Cohen, Abraham and Edita Spiegel Family Foundation Professor of European Jewish History, Tel Aviv University "This Masterful collection of essays is vintage David Berger thoughtful, engaged, broad and insightful. Trained as a medievalist, specializing in the Jewish-Christian debate, Prof. Berger demonstrates that to understand the present relation between the two religions, one must go back in history and see what lessons can be derived from the past. Published over the course of a long career, these articles have stood the test of time and retain their vitality and liveliness, providing a model of careful and independent thinking on oftentimes sensitive subjects. " --Daniel J. Lasker, Norbert Blechner Professor of Jewish Values, Ben-Gurion University of Negev Table of Contents: Introduction ix Spanning the Centuries Anti-Semitism: An Overview 3 The Middle Ages From Cursades to Blood Libels to Expulsions: Some New Approaches to Medieval Anti-Semitism 15 A Generation of Scholarship on Jewish-Christian Interaction in the Medieval World 40 Jacob Katz on Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages 51 Introduction to The Jewish Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages: A Critical Edition of the Nizzahon Vetus with an Introduction, Translation and Commentary 75 On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature 109 On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic Against Christianity: The Quest for the Historical Jesus 139 Christians, Gentiles, and the Talmud: A Fourteenth-Century Jewish Response to the Attack on Rabbinic Judaism 158 Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts in the Polemical Literature of the High Middle Ages 177 The Barcelona Disputation: Review Essay 199 Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 209 Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob Ben Reuben: A Study in the Transmission of Medieval Polemic 227 The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux toward the Jews 245 St. Peter Damian: His Attitude toward the Jews and the Old Testament 261 Modern and Contemporary Times Religion, Nationalism and Historiography: Yehezkel Kaufmann's Account of Jesus and Early Christianity 291 The "Jewish Contribution" to Christianity 312 Jewish-Christian Relations: A Jewish Perspective 333 Reflections on Conversion and Proselytizing in Judaism And Christianity 367 On Dominus Iesus and the Jews 378 Revisiting "Confrontation" after Forty Years: A Response to Rabbi Eugene Korn 385 Dabru Emet: Some Reservations about a Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity 392 Jews, Christians, and The Passion 399 Index of Sources 417 Index 420 Best wishes, Christa Kling Sales and Marketing Academic Studies Press 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135 Tel / Fax: 617.782.6290 www.academicstudiespress.com --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
