In Honor of Jewish Books
ITHE TREE OF LIFE STILL GIVES FORTH ITS FRUIT, AND WE ARE INVITED TO TASTE, TO EAT HEARTILY OF IT [ Adam and Eve were not cast out of the Garden as a punishment; they were cast out lest they...
...We think that would be an inappropriate conclusion The Jewish library is vast, and can sometimes seem simply overwhelming But what it comes down to is that a particular book speaks to a particular reader For Jews—leaving aside those books that are part of Jewish behavior, such as the siddur—there are very many points of entry (not, be it noted, points of departure) for the sojourn through the Jewish experience Some of our panelists sought to provide a comprehensive array, a real beginner's introduction to Jewish literature, philosophy, music, art, to Israel, the Holocaust, Eastern Europe, the American experience...
...1. The JPS Torah is the obvious choice for English readers, and the rest of the Bible as soon as JPS gets it all retranslated...
...4. American Jewish Year Book, put out each year by the American Jewish Committee...
...His introductory essay is a classic and is helpful in understanding the dilemma that Zionism faces today...
...Perhaps a refugee from somewhere in the sixties, maybe having read or tasted some bit of the spiritual counterculture...
...3. Lucy Davidowicz, The Golden Tradition...
...Then will our days be renewed as of old, says the prayer...
...I am assuming that the reader will some day go beyond this shelf and will want to learn about all those exciting persons, places, ideas that make up the lunchbox of the Jewish people...
...2. The Mahzor: Because of its elegantly simple translation, I recommend Philip Birnbaum's Mahzor...
...These two books count as one...
...Nothing is enough here but I knowingly omit Waxman and other encyclopedic writings on Hebrew and Yiddish literature...
...Bernard Bamburger, The Bible: Modern Jewish Approach...
...Elie Wiesel, The Town Beyond the Wall...
...What about the Jewish holidays, Jewish ideas, personalities, writings, Zionism, Israel...
...I would take Singer even if (God forbid) the ship really were sinking...
...9. I cannot omit the Siddur because it has been the most read book of all Jewish history, even if it is recently out of favor...
...It would, because of the authoritative aura given to it, be an invitation to Jewish superficiality...
...But I think this is a real lack and perhaps something like Howe's World of Our Fathers is a kind of corrective (or on another level, something by Mordecai Kaplan...
...Two beautifully evocative essays in a single volume...
...Art Green is a Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania Let me be very Jewish and begin my answer by criticizing the question...
...However, its relevance increases when we realize that many of our own personality characteristics and personal styles—even if we are far removed from being traditional Jews—have been strongly influenced by a culture which we only see now in fragmented form...
...Its significance for us is more apparent when we realize that something like this process probably occurred to many of our relatives before our own families emigrated from Europe...
...6. N. N. Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought...
...they were cast out lest they eat of the Tree of Life The casting out was a recognition that Man, having become aware of his mortality ("for from dust thou were formed, and to dust thou will return," God had told Adam) would inevitably seek to overcome that mortality...
...The same holds true for the prayer book, even if we could agree on the rite or edition that would fit the bill moment's intention of introducing Jewish learning to the general public is, of course, commendable and deserving of support...
...2. The Source, James Michener...
...Has not yet been superseded as an intelligent, non-patronizing introduction to tenets of Judaism...
...it is a Tree of Life for those who cling to it...
...4. A Bencher: Judah Goldin's Bencher, Grace After Meals, published by Jewish Theological Seminary, is the best version of birkat hama-zon known to me...
...4. A survey history with a series of essential ideas and popular style...
...My selection is A. E. Millgram's Jewish Worship, which analyzes prayer...
...Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People (Modern Library...
...Since Heschel remains the one authentic and persuasive theologian of Judaism of our day, I believe his best book essential...
...The best reminder I know of that which we often forget: the sacred dimension of our personal and interpersonal lives...
...But, I hope that this moment feature will herald a new seriousness in educating the American Jewish public...
...8. The Judaic Tradition, N. Glatzer He introduces the reader to the writers and thinkers directly...
...A comprehensive description, with illustrations, of the place of music in Jewish civilization...
...This is what makes it the first on my list...
...Because of the diverse range of topics covered, its non-denominational approach, its seriousness without being "preachy," its traditionalism without necessarily turning only to halachah, I think that The Catalog serves as a kind of opening statement for the formation of a still undefined "new halachah " Jacob Neusner, University Professor, Professor of Religious Studies, The Un-gerleider Distinguished Scholar of Judaic Studies, at Brown University, is the author of Invitation to the Talmud: A Teaching Book (Harper & Row), The Academic Study of Judaism (Ktav), two volumes, and A History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities (Leiden), I-XXII...
...Zalman Schachter is a Professor in the Department of Religion at Temple University The reader who builds his library ought to make sure to find out where in the neighborhood there is a publicly accessible Encyclopedia Judaica, or if one lives too far from one, buy the Standard Jewish Encyclopedia edited by Geoffrey Wigoder...
...The new "Union" commentary to the Bible...
...Yet, the Bible by itself is (or should be...
...Also it is good to find the nearest home for the aged and look around there for an elder who has the knowledge and is, nebbach, vegetating there...
...2. The Torah—Genesis, W. Gunther Plaut...
...I avoid the classics, which you'll get to sooner or later without my 1. A. J. Heschel, The Sabbath and The Earth is the Lord's...
...Its obvious bias is severalfold' that understanding Jewish thought and conceptualization is important...
...More than symbol is here involved...
...It is a way to get into the multilaye'red tel of Jewish History which still continues...
...Herman Wouk's This is My God, and James Michener's The Source, although they might be mentioned...
...2. The second book, then, will be a Siddur—Hebrew and English...
...Numbers 1-5 are for everyday use, Numbers 6-7 for everyday reference, and Numbers 8-10 are meant to-lay the foundations for further reading in the areas of theology, literature, and history...
...An excellent description of the most important movement m modern history...
...unintelligible without literally scores of commentaries, ancient or modern...
...A sympathetic, generalized and very readable anthropological study of what it meant to be an ordinary Jew in everyday terms in the small town society of Eastern Europe...
...2. Contemporary Israeli Literature, edited by Elliot Anderson...
...Singer speaks of our condition as modern Jews as much as Maimonides (sorry again, Zeide) and, though he would be the first to deny it, is one of the few really satisfying Jewish theologians writing today, and the only one who gets published in The New Yorker...
...8. Night, Elie Wiesel...
...An exposition of a philosophy of Judaism which has led to the initiation of a new movement in American Jewish life...
...9. The Jewish Catalog...
...No one would dispute, for example, the fact that a literate Jew must own a copy of the Bible with an English translation...
...It is rich in complementary information and will provide many fundamental facts for the reader...
...7. The Manor and The Estate, Isaac Bashevis Singer...
...A classical theology of Judaism restated in a richly poetic modern idiom...
...This is assuredly not the Garden...
...Country...
...6. Great Jewish Stories, edited by Saul Bellow...
...For my money, Irving Green-berg's pamphlets on individual holidays are the best treatments I know of, and they're available through the Conference Center (1 Riverdale Avenue, Bronx, New York...
...Much over-rated and under-rated, it works well if you take it as a faltering and ever-fallible guide toward the beginnings of building a Jewish lifestyle that is right for you...
...Sachar writes better than any other Jewish historian, and he presents a broad and careful picture of modern and contemporary Jewish history...
...A reliable reference work dealing with every phase of Judaism and the Jews...
...is here given full and powerful treatment...
...They are widely found in Jewish homes...
...It will take a long time to be read, and when it is fully assimilated, it will change the reader's understanding of the issues of Holocaust and Messiah...
...5. Abba Eban, My...
...Judah Goldin's The Jewish Expression brings together some of the most exciting scholarly (but quite intelligible) articles covering all periods of Jewish history...
...The Tree of Life was right there, waiting to be tasted So here we are, and have been for some time, seeking to compensate...
...3. A Siddur...
...The answers are as diverse as the panel members' ten people nominated a total of sixty-seven books, and there were only four— including a siddur and the Tanach—that appeared on as many as five different lists Novice students and readers may find the results discouraging, if the experts can't agree, what is one to do...
...There are only the ten most important Jewish books in your life—or in mine...
...Included are the JPS translations, archeologi-cal and historical notes, a modern commentary which attempts to explain the text and its possible relevancy for today, and selections from the Midrash, the medieval commentators, and modern writers...
...That's probably an unfair analogy because it assumes that the ship is indeed sinking, and that only ten can be saved...
...Still the most reasonable statement allowing the reader to align him/herself with the either modernist or traditionalist and really make up his/her own mind...
...7. N. N. Glatzer, Hammer on the Rock...
...Since it will leave you all quite up in the clouds, I will add (strictly as a shammes) The Jewish Catalog...
...Where we have come from and who we are are brilliantly portrayed in these works of historical literature...
...Without that all of the Catalog and Hertz and Steinberg is only two-dimensional...
...I have found Heschel's work to be the single best introduction to the spiritual heritage of classical and post-Talmudic Judaism seen through the eyes of an unusual Jew who was heir to Western intellectual history as well as to the Kabbalistic tradition of his famous Has-sidic family...
...Aha...
...5. Zborowski and Herzog, Life is with People...
...He does not write 'about' them...
...8. Abraham J. Heschel, God In Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism: The basic library should include at least one work of Jewish thought, so that our hypothetical beginner will have some idea of what being a Jew 'means...
...While it does not occupy a full bookcase, it is a competent and acceptable volume...
...6. Geoffrey Wigoder, ed., Jewish Encyclopaedia (one volume): Because of its informative and accurate character, and because it also is readable...
...7. Mordecai M. Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization...
...That having been said, I would recommend that a modern Jewish library begin with the following: 1. The Bible with the latest translations of the Jewish Publication Society, as they appear...
...Steinberg's poignant novel which centers around the tragic life of Elisha ben Abuya, a first century rabbinic sage who later became a heretic, mirrors the author's own conflict (and that of most 20th century intellectuals) m attempting to mediate between the tensions of "faith and reason"—the perennial quest to reconcile the still competing worlds of Jerusalem and Athens...
...I still prefer Louis Finkelstein, editor, The Jews: Their History, Culture and Religion in three volumes in paperback...
...Best-selling political-cultural-literary history of Jews in America and their mutual impact on each other...
...The Jewish Publication Society has issued new renditions of the Torah, the Megillot, Psalms, and several of the Prophets and others are promised soon...
...Breaking the pattern of my previous recommendations, I recommend Arthur Hertzberg's The Zionist Idea...
...The New English Bible contains the complete text...
...I wish it would be possible to suggest a book about the Bible that had some substantial excerpts...
...7. Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man (Yale Press...
...His manner of conceptualizing the underlying structure of the Sabbath has struck so many responsive chords among many of us that one finds his language almost unconsciously absorbed by most of us who attempt to explain the Sabbath symbolism to others...
...It is written lightly enough and is not too expensive to buy...
...Let me opt for Leo Schwartz' Jewish Caravan or Great Jewish Books and their Influence on History edited by Samuel Caplan and Harold Ribalow in order to provide some kind of overview on Jewish wnting in the past millennium...
...9. Arthur A. Cohen, The Days of Simon Stern: This remarkable theological novel, a tour de force which has yet to be fully understood 4. Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought, Najium Glatzer, ed...
...3. Moving right along: To Be a Jew by Hayim Donin (Basic Books) for a straightforward, lucid, intelligent and humane guide to "how to do it...
...9. The Zionist Idea, Arthur Hertzberg...
...5. A History of Israel, Howard Sachar...
...Be sure to get the second (much augmented) edition...
...Therefore I recommend, for the first stage of the library, The Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary, translated into English by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silberman, which will allow the reader to enter into the literature of Torah as Jews have always learned it...
...I would not want in this minyan of books any monolithic Trip put on the reader that would claim "Judaism states", which Judaism, and who and when and under what circumstances7 These questions need to be asked by the reader who builds his/her library...
...Hertzberg's anthology is an excellent way of beginning to understand the often contradictory forces that led to the formation of the Zionist movement and which later found realization in the founding of a modern Jewish State...
...The reader who enters the Jewish liturgical and theological life without an understanding of his or her historical setting will not understand why he or she at this late stage in history ought to begin a library which, in truth, should already be in the bones and the blood...
...3. Basic Judaism, M. Steinberg...
...All other animals know only that which they have experienced...
...8. N. N. Glatzer, Language of Faith...
...4. Siddur, Humash, Hertz...
...6. Life is With People, Elizabeth Herzog and Mark Zborowski...
...And it is readable...
...how much more so for Jewish history and culture that is twenty-five centuries older and variegated by a dozen or more different cultural idioms...
...6. Either Cecil Roth or Geoffrey Wigoder on the Jewish arts...
...8. Dawidowicz, Lucy, The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945, an important history of the Holocaust 9. Sachar, Howard M., A History of Israel, a study of the modern Jewish state from the rise of Zionism...
...But our Tree of Life still gives forth its fruit, and we are invited to taste, to eat heartily of it...
...Montefiore and Loew don't agree on the conclusions to be drawn from any statement...
...There is no order in the quorum and I don't even know if these ten are sufficient for common prayer...
...Several books commend themselves, but I would select Diamant even if it is not a great work of scholarship, because many Jews have read it, found it readable and even inspirational...
...We had thought it would be helpful to organize the lists that were submitted under general categories...
...For those who question the status and relevance of their people's faith, and their own, this book provides a breathtaking perspective on the place of religion m the history of ideas...
...1. "The Way of Man According to the Teachings of Has-sidism" in Hassidism and Modern Man, Martin Buber...
...What does it feel like from the inside to live in the shtetl, to laugh at one's troubles, to be devoted endlessly, to be thought crazy, as crazy as Dostoevsky, to be singlemindedly pursuing Torah like Hersch Ras-seiner, etc., etc...
...That other side of the Jew's experience in God's world (the one you felt that Buber and Heschel had ignored...
...These include The Torah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Psalms, The Five Megilloth and Jonah...
...A brief and refreshing introduction to Judaism—particularly helpful because of its non-apologetic approach...
...7. Schechter, Solomon, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology, a classic overview of Rabbinic Judaism and its thought, which remains the best single statement on the subject...
...Originally issued in a separate volume, and reprinted in its entirety in Religion from Tolstoy to Camus, edited by Walter Kaufmann...
...The "basic" library, then, should consist of twelve books, since my zeide (lav ha-shalom) once told me that every Jew, no matter how poor, has a Chumash and Siddur at home...
...A brief but magnificent selection of rabbinic teachings, worthy of much study and discussion...
...8. H. Schauss, The Jewish Festivals...
...Our knowledge begins with Torah But the prayer does not stop quite there The Torah is not a Tree of Life in and of itself...
...These are not books which one "must have" because they are regarded as classics, but because they tell us what we must know to be Jews...
...Howard Sachar, The Course of Modern Jewish History & The History of Israel: Since numbers three and four are small and brief, I may be forgiven for including 11 books in my 10...
...There is no better New Age guide into the variety and depth of Jewish life...
...Andre Schwartz-Bart, The Last of the Just...
...Though justly criticized from a scholarly point of view, still a wonderful collection of anecdotes to illustrate a Jewish approach to the religious life...
...A handbook to Jewish living, with mostly sensitive, though occasionally flippant, comments on contemporary Jewish life 10...
...I've omitted two useful "popular" books which people often find helpful as general introductions, i.e...
...Tales to be reread and studied...
...8. Now the limitation of numbers begins to press in on me...
...1. A Bible...
...It doesn't matter which one, and I won't let my own prejudices here intrude...
...Night, Elie Wiesel...
...2. God in Search of Man, Abraham Joshua Heschel...
...I find both volumes of The Jewish Catalog a fascinating, if incomplete, document, bearing witness to some positive uses of the counterculture of the I960's for an American Jewish cultural revival...
...This 3-volume book takes one richly through the Jewish year Not only gives the "what" but also the "how" and "why " 6. Tanya, Rabbi Shneur Zal-man of Ladi...
...Monteflore and Loew (Rabbinic Anthology) is one of several anthologies that serve this purpose...
...It is not enough by itself but will goad the reader to go deeper into Jewish history at the level one is most deeply interested in...
...2. Leo Trepp, History of the Jewish Experience, paperback This would be a supplement to Sachar, describing the history of Judaism and not merely the history of the Jews...
...And we compensate—we imitate immortality—by creating our own Tree of Life, which we call Torah...
...Two sequential novels which vividly chronicle the disintegration of traditional East European Jewish society and the entry of the Jew into the modern world—all seen through the changing fortunes of a wealthy Rusas the work of genius that it is, belongs in the basic library...
...9. Short Friday, I. B.Singer's incomparable collection of short stories also gets on my list, perhaps because I'm not always such a rationalist...
...There are a number of fine translations...
...The Yiddish stories are essential for the reader who wants to know the subjective stuff which the elitist academics don't deal with...
...Steinberg's distinction between traditional and modern approaches to Judaism remains more valid than any current institutional labels...
...No one better understands the modern Jew and his complex relationship to tradition...
...There are, of course, no ten most basic or most important Jewish books...
...Barry Daniel Cytron is Rabbi of Tifereth Israel Synagogue in Des Moines, Iowa Drawing up the enclosed list represented a challenge, and occasioned a rethinking of the route by which I decided to become involved in my work...
...7. The Jewish Catalog: For the same reason as the foregoing, I think this item is indispensable...
...Let's make him/her intelligent, sensitive (a typical moment reader), and involved in some sort of religious quest which is more than a search for personal or ethnic identity...
...On the contrary, it seems to me that any such list would prove, in its necessary incompleteness, to be an embarrassment to its compiler and a distinct disservice to its audience...
...3. A volume on the Mishnah, Talmud, etc...
...And, in the Garden, nothing would have been simpler...
...The Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel seem to be the two polar events around which 20th century Jewish history revolves...
...Isaac Toubin is Executive Vice-President of the American Association for Jewish Education...
...Howard Sachar on The Course of Modern Jewish History brings us into the latter part of the 20th century so that we get some view of the Holocaust and the creation of Israel, and it is good...
...Others preferred one or two basic titles, supplemented by the books that had evidently been critical in their own growth and development And people will, inevitably, make their own way...
...Lily Edelman is Book Editor for National Jewish Monthly Here is my list of ten books, off the top of my head, and away from my home library where I can check off titles exactly...
...4. The Way of Man: An Introduction to Judaism by Jacob Neusner (Dickenson Publishing Co...
...But the categories overlap so, and the comments of our panelists offer such important perspective on the books, that we've chosen to let the lists speak for themselves Readers will note, as we did to our surprise, that the Jewish Catalog has become a relative "must," testament to how much emphasis our panelists place on Jewish living as a way to Jewish learning...
...5. Cecil Roth's one volume Encyclopedia...
...Another advantage of this Siddur is a companion volume, containing historical and explanatory notes by Israel Abrahams, reissued recently by Hermon Press...
...1. Basic Judaism, Milton Steinberg...
...3. Hertz Chumash...
...8. Milton Steinberg, Basic Judaism...
...the book is a collection of readings culled from the major source texts of Jewish history...
...4. Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim...
...Two of three volumes have been issued to date...
...To be read a bit at a time and savored, preferably on Shabbat afternoons...
...I and II...
...Rosenzweig remains the classic model of the modem Western Jew returning to the tradition...
...Its ways are ways of pleasantness And all its paths are peace Turn us unto you, O God And we will return Renew our days as of old...
...5. The Living Talmud (Mentor) by Judah Goldin for a thoughtful and readable introduction to the world of rabbinic literature...
...Also much maligned these days, this work of nostalgic sociology beautifully evokes the world of the Eastern European shtetl—and teaches a good deal about Jewish life and practice along the way...
...One can learn so much and at the same time have such a Mitzvah...
...for an insightful overview of what it all means...
...Although Wiesel has written much powerful prose, his first work—and one of his shortest—is still probably his most moving...
...and finally, that all this is working towards some kind of re-integration—for one symbolized by Buber, Rosenzweig and in some sense, The Jewish Catalog...
...And finally, for this inadequate minyan, something on Zionism...
...9. Treasury of Yiddish Poetry edited by Irving Howe and Eleazar Greenberg...
...A concise preface to Jewish thought...
...While Rosenzweig' language and intellectual assumptions are sometimes difficult for us to follow, since he lived in a world dominated by Hegelian concepts, his spiritual journey still remains the model par excellence for the odyssey of the modern assimilated Jew who seriously attempts to regain his tradition without at the same time abnegating his intellectual autonomy...
...For me, Buber's short work "The Way of Man," has provided an especially personal meaningful guide to the process of human growth, change and "t'shuvah"—what it means to be a "mentsch"— according to Buber's reading of the Jewish tradition and particularly as reflected in his understanding of Hassidism...
...I have found William Kaufman's book, Contemporary Jewish Philosophies the most lucid analysis of those main Jewish ideas which are alleged to have influenced the thinking of the contemporary Jew...
...1. No list of Jewish books— however large or small—can omit the Bible: I really mean the Tanach...
...Unless one wants to recommend 42 feet of encyclopedic publication, how could one begin to cover more than 3000 years of history and creativity...
...1. The Jewish Catalog, Vols...
...If I can't assume that my zeide's dictum still holds, then the first two books on the list should be a Chumash and a Siddur...
...Only Man, in short, is capable of a kind of immortality That is why we call the Torah a Tree of Life rather than a Tree of Knowledge, which it more obviously is A people is judged by the quality of the knowledge it seeks to transmit...
...7. Community and Polity: The Dynamics of the American Jewish Community, by Daniel J. Elazar...
...The purpose of this library is to serve the Jewish life of a Jewish man or woman and so the criterion of selection is defined by books a Jew must have to conduct everyday life...
...6. As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg, a historical novel based on the life of Elisha ben Abuya, whose questions are our own at one point or another...
...the interested reader can then go to the prayerbook...
...It is the gaps that trouble me...
...9. Judith K Eisenstein, Heritage of Music...
...All of them will require slow and careful reading, and even the theology and history can stand more than a single go-around...
...This short essay serves two purposes—it is an introduction to Hasidism, via Martin Buber, and an equally effective prelude to the thought of Martin Buber, by way of the Hasidic masters...
...5. The Tanach: There is no one-volume Tanach with a suitable commentary known to me...
...Ira Eisenstein is the President of the Reconstruc-tionist Rabbinical College The assignment is really very difficult, but here's my attempt to list the first ten books that I would recommend to someone...
...but "Where would you start9" Steven Shaw is program specialist at Ramapo College and Rabbi of Temple Beth-el in Rutherford, New Jersey What I've done is to put together a series of ten books ("more or less . . ") which I would use as an "introduction to Judaism" for people who are thoughtful, intelligent and willing to spend time in reading...
...Most updated sociological analysis of the power structure of the American Jewish community and what makes it tick...
...sian family...
...5. The Book of our Heritage, E. Kitov...
...The soul of the Yiddish contribution, offering a sampling of modem Yiddish poets in translation, including poems by the murdered Soviet Jewish poets...
...For you I have some books...
...Superb new anthology of poetry and prose that reveals the mind and spirit of contemporary Israelis, with luminous afterword by Robert Alter...
...Comprehensive, updated history of establishment of Israel, with penetrating analyses of origins of Jewish nationalism, impact of holocaust, relations with Arabs;' luminous clarity and scholarship on most important aspect of modern Jewish history...
...8. World of Our Fathers, Irving Howe...
...I've also neglected to do very much with the cycle of the Jewish year, except what's included in The Catalog and Heschel's The Sabbath...
...Having a volume like this at hand to look up anything one wishes to know further is worthwhile...
...An excellent study of the structure and functioning of the American Jewish community...
...While there is much in the Tanya that may not sit well with a novice in Judaism, it is the basic vocabulary for talking and thinking with self, others, and G-d...
...The Jewish Catalog (I and II), Sharon and Michael Strassfeld and Richard Siegel...
...Some people have called me the Zeide of the Continued on page 60 Catalog and in a sense I am proud of that appellation...
...9. S. Y. Agnon, Twenty-One Tales...
...4. Leo Schwartz (ed...
...The serious caveats noted above are, I believe, important so that the list of books I shall give as a scant beginning of a Jewish library should not be construed as being complete, either in breadth or in depth...
...So much for my minyan...
...Better to assume that the Jew who decides to build a basic Jewish library will keep building...
...Trying to decide which ten books to select for a "basic Jewish library" is like trying to choose which ten relatives to save from the sinking ship...
...3. The Encyclopedia Judaica...
...3. The Sabbath and The Earth Is the Lord's, Abraham Joshua Heschel...
...3. Martin Buber, I and Thou...
...A rich source book of the culture of the recent past...
...7. An examination of modem Jewish philosophies...
...1. Abram Sachar, History of the Jews, in paperback...
...The book, par excellence, on the Holocaust experience...
...The reader can form her/his own conclusions and learn more about the one who turned her/him on 9. Treasury of Yiddish Stories, Greenberg and Howe, and Life is With People, Hertzog and Zborowski...
...A description of the way the Jewish calendar is observed in many parts of the world, with historical background...
...Indeed, to treat the biblical text as an adequate entree to biblical Judaism would be an intellectual sham...
...In a functional rather than a preachy way, know-how and do-it-yourself are wedded and not by one person or male but a whole wide variety of people who want to be peers with the reader...
...Again, I am thinking of a field of interest which ought to be of concern to a fairly knowledgeable Jew...
...Spiegel, Shalom, Hebrew Reborn...
...The bilingual edition has good notes and encourages the reader to look on the Hebrew side for some of the terms...
...The Way of Torah: An Introduction to Judaism, Jacob Neusner...
...A historical survey of the place of the Land of Israel in the consciousness of the Jewish people...
...7. Rabbinic Anthology, Montefiore and Loew This book makes the "religious" issues of the Talmud accessible in a really delightful way...
...I must therefore assume a reader to whom I am speaking...
...Still, I want to cooperate and not just give you my own private list...
...I find at least one book on Jewish mysticism important...
...Only Man creates knowledge—and sometimes wisdom—outside himself, in ways that can be transmitted through space, through time All other animals pass on to their young passively, through genetic transfer Only Man passes on actively, through choice and intent, and thereby extends his own sway beyond the time he has returned to dust...
...His life—perhaps even more than his thought—is an important model...
...Elie Wiesel, The Gates of the Forest...
...But this is one case where we had better stick with the text and, in this regard, I would recommend the Soncino edition (even if it is voluminous), because it has intelligent introductions and interpretive comments...
...7. Happily, another paperback...
...Twersky's introduction is helpful and his selection is judicious...
...8. A Maimonides Reader, edited by Isadore Twersky and available (like so many other fine books) through JPS, gets on my list, perhaps because I'm sometimes such a rationalist and because I think Maimonides is basic...
...It is not my idea of a great book but it touches in an innocent, sincere and engaging way on a wide variety of Jewish matters...
...At least one piece of fiction should be included in a basic library The four below represent my favorites, all are in paperback: Milton Steinberg, As a Driven Leaf...
...And those who find their favorites missing should bear in mind that our question to the panelists was not "What would you include9" or even "What's most important...
...The trip into the Hells and Heavens of the Jewish consciousness is facilitated by this book...
...My copy is always on loan to someone, which should tell you something...
...Again, my thesis is "first read and then, if you are interested, study about what you should be reading...
...Finally, I've really neglected the secular Jewish option since my background and bias are "spiritualistic...
...I am torn between a book on Israel (even Exodus would be exciting) or something on the development of the Zionist idea...
...Six essays, by outstanding contemporary scholars, which introduce the reader to the richness and variety of Jewish history...
...Both are the main liturgical tools for the person who wishes to connect with other practicing Jews and who wants to have the most traditional while at the same time most reasonable (prior to fuller commitment) resources at his/her fingertips...
...My choice, for completeness and ease of use, would be the Singer translation from England: The Authorized Daily Prayer Book...
...So says the prayer...
...5. Nahum Glatzer, The Judaic Tradition (Beacon Press...
...Indispensable introduction, with commentaries, to Hebrew Bible...
...That this place, too, may become a garden...
...5. As a Driven Leaf, Milton Steinberg...
...6. W. Laquer, History of Zionism...
...Arthur Cohen, In the Days of Simon Stern...
...It is a Tree of Life for those who cling to it Those who endorse it are enriched...
...4. Daniel Elazar, Community and Polity...
...that it's crucial to understand Judaism via our current situation of secularization and modernity caused by the fragmentation and disintegration of East European (or other traditional forms of) Jewish society...
...1. The Siddur: Because of its commentary, which is informative and factual, I recommend Jacob Hertz's Siddur...
...IN HONOR OF JEWISH BOOKS In recognition of Jewish Book Month, celebrated annually in November, moment asked a diverse panel of experts to recommend the ten books that would be their first choices for inclusion in a "starter" Jewish library...
...An elementary introduction to the Hebrew Bible which is at the core of all Jewish literature and religion...
...Heschel's treatment of both the Sabbath and the vanished world of Eastern European Jewry has a poetic quality that is even more remarkable when one realizes that he learned English only as a mature adult...
...The reader will need to have Life m order to enjoy the Yiddish anthology...
...2. The Jewish Catalog— Vhavdil...
...3. The Passover Haggadah: Maurice Samuel's translation is ideal...
...Cecil Roth, New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia...
...Tradition and Crisis by Jacob Katz (Schocken paperback), to understand, among other things, how we got to where we are in our people's experience that we need lists of basic books for intelligent Jews...
...6. Martin Buber, The Way of Man According to the Teachings of the Hasidim...
...So say we...
...A very good popular survey of Jewish history...
...2. A. J. Heschel, God in Search of Man...
...I believe m a sort of populist way that this is how the Babylonian Talmud happened So the Catalog is in my mind the prototype of the American Talmud...
...i My criteria include readability, reliability (without bonng scholarship and details) and affective influence on the reader, and the capacity to stir the mind as well as the heart...
...Remains the best collection on subject, with brilliant introduction by Bellow...
...Wiesel's haunting description of what it was like to be a teenager in Auschwitz is part of what it means to be a Jew today...
...2. The Daily Prayer Book, edited by Phillip Birnbaum...
...Gerson D. Cohen is the Chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America In considering the substance of your request, I must admit to being somewhat nonplussed by the implication that anyone could provide a list of ten books which would constitute an effective introduction to the literary world of Judaism...
...Any edition...
...One Novel...
...The best introduction to Jewish prayer—simply by presenting a wide selection of texts, chosen by the master anthologist...
...Three volumes combined into one...
...6. Ben Sasson, H. H. (editor), A History of the Jewish People, the latest comprehensive history in one volume...
...not one crammed with dates and names in a 500-page jumble...
...To answer the question in the abstract would somehow be a sin against the sort of Judaism I like to think I believe in...
...This would be a book "about" and should contain a large number of quotes...
...Birnbaum's Siddur and the Rabbinical Assembly Siddur edited by Jules Harlow surely deserve mention...
...I feel the question would be inappropriate even for American civilization...
...Michael Brooks is Principal of the Hebrew High School at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Michigan, and Jewish Chaplain at the federal prison in Milan...
...selections from the Apocrypha and Talmud, portions of the medieval classics, and readings from modern times, concluding with selections on the Holocaust and the State of Israel, make this the most far ranging anthology of its kind...
...4. Prayer book...
...Also useful as a supplement is his anthology, Understanding Jewish Theology, which treats the basic structure of Jewish theology (God-Torah-Israel) from both a classical and modern perspective...
...5. Kaufman, Yehezkel, The Religion of Israel, a comprehensive study of pre-exilic biblical thought...
Vol. 3 • November 1977 • No. 1
