The Routledge Handbook to Contemporary Jewish Cultures explores the diversity of Jewish cultures and ways of investigating them, presenting the different methodologies, arguments and challenges within the discipline. Divided into themed sections, this book considers in turn: How the individual terms "Jewish" and "culture" are defined, looking at perspectives from Anthropology, Music, Literary Studies, Sociology, Religious Studies, History, Art History, and Film, Television, and New Media Studies. How Jewish cultures are theorized, looking at key themes regarding power, textuality, religion/secularity, memory, bodies, space and place, and networks. Case studies in contemporary Jewish cultures. With essays by leading scholars in Jewish culture, this book offers a clear overview of the field and offers exciting new directions for the future.

The Routledge Handbook to Contemporary Jewish Cultures explores the diversity of Jewish cultures and ways of investigating them, presenting the different methodologies, arguments and challenges within the discipline. Divided into themed sections, this book considers in turn: How the individual terms "Jewish" and "culture" are defined, looking at perspectives from Anthropology, Music, Literary Studies, Sociology, Religious Studies, History, Art History, and Film, Television, and New Media Studies. How Jewish cultures are theorized, looking at key themes regarding power, textuality, religion/secularity, memory, bodies, space and place, and networks. Case studies in contemporary Jewish cultures. With essays by leading scholars in Jewish culture, this book offers a clear overview of the field and offers exciting new directions for the future.

This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary Israel, accounting for changes, developments and contemporary debates. The different chapters offer both a historical background and an updated analysis of politics, economy, society and culture. Across five sections, a multidisciplinary group of experts, including sociologists, political scientists, historians and social scientists, engage in a wide variety of topics through different perspectives and insights. The book opens with a historical section outlining the formation of Israel and Jewish nationalism. The second section examines contemporary institutions in Israel, their developments and the contemporary challenges they face in light of social, economic, political and cultural changes. The third section explores geopolitics and Israel’s foreign relations, exploring conflicts, alliances and foreign policy with neighbors and powers. The fourth section engages with Israel’s internal divisions and schisms, highlighting questions of identity and inequality while also outlining processes of integration and marginalization between groups. The final section explores matters of culture, through the social and demographic shifts in contemporary music, poetry and cuisine, along with the struggles for inclusion and the impact of globalization on Israeli culture. The Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Israel is designed for academics along with undergraduate and postgraduate students taking courses on Israel, Israeli politics, and culture and society in modern Israel.

Defines the distinctive field of Jewish cultural studies and its basis in folkloristic, psychological, and ethnological approaches. Jewish Cultural Studiescharts the contours and boundaries of Jewish cultural studies and the issues of Jewish culture that make it so intriguing—and necessary—not only for Jews but also for students of identity, ethnicity, and diversity generally. In addition to framing the distinguishing features of Jewish culture and the ways it has been studied, and often misrepresented and maligned, Simon J. Bronner presents several case studies using ethnography, folkloristic interpretation, and rhetorical analysis. Bronner, building on many years of global cultural exploration, locates patterns, processes, frames, and themes of events and actions identified as Jewish to discern what makes them appear Jewish and why. Jewish Cultural Studiesis divided into three parts. Part 1 deals with the conceptualization of how Jews in complex, heterogenous societies identify themselves as a cultural group to non-Jews and vice versa—such as how the Jewish home is socially and materially constructed. Part 2 delves into ritualization as a strategic Jewish practice for perpetuating peoplehood and the values that it suggests—for example, the rising popularity of naming ceremonies for newborn girls, simhat bat or zeved habat, in the twenty-first century. Part 3 explores narration, including the global transformation of Jewish joking in online settings and the role of Jews in American political culture. Bronner reflects that a reason to separate Jewish cultural studies from the fields of Jewish studies and cultural studies is the distinctiveness of Jewish culture among other ethnic experiences. As a diasporic group with religious ties and varying local customs, Jews present difficulties of categorization. He encourages a multiperspectival approach that considers the Jewish double consciousness as being aware of both insider and outsider perspectives, participation in ancient tradition and recent modernization, and the great variety and stigmatization of Jewish experience and cultural expression. Students and scholars in Jewish studies, cultural studies, ethnic-religious studies, folklore, sociology, psychology, and ethnology are the intended audience for this book.

The Routledge Handbook of Muslim-Jewish Relations invites readers to deepen their understanding of the historical, social, cultural, and political themes that impact modern-day perceptions of interfaith dialogue. The volume is designed to illuminate positive encounters between Muslims and Jews, as well as points of conflict, within a historical framework. Among other goals, the volume seeks to correct common misperceptions about the history of Muslim-Jewish relations by complicating familiar political narratives to include dynamics such as the cross-influence of literary and intellectual traditions. Reflecting unique and original collaborations between internationally-renowned contributors, the book is intended to spark further collaborative and constructive conversation and scholarship in the academy and beyond.

Few cities around the world transcend their physical boundaries the way Jerusalem does. As the spiritual capital of monotheism, Jerusalem has ancient roots and legacies that have imposed themselves on its inhabitants throughout the centuries. In modern times, and aside from all the religious complexities, Jerusalem has become enmeshed in the Palestinian and Israeli national identities and political aspirations, which have involved and dragged into the fray other actors from around the world. Consisting of 35 chapters from leading specialists, the Routledge Handbook on Jerusalem provides a broad spectrum of studies related to the city and its history. Beginning with a historical overview starting from the end of the Bronze age, the chapters go on to look at a range of topics including: religious symbolism and pilgrimage religious and social relations social and economic history architecture and archaeology maps eschatology politics By bringing together contributions from leading scholars of different disciplines, this Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the various layers that make up this unique and special city. It will appeal to students and scholars of Middle East Studies, religion and cultural history, and anyone with an interest in learning more about Jerusalem.

The Routledge Handbook of Identity and the Environment in the Classical and Medieval Worlds explores how environment was thought to shape ethnicity and identity, discussing developments in early natural philosophy and historical ethnographies. Defining ‘environment’ broadly to include not only physical but also cultural environments, natural and constructed, the volume considers the multifarious ways in which environment was understood to shape the culture and physical characteristics of peoples, as well as how the ancients manipulated their environments to achieve a desired identity. This diverse collection includes studies not only of the Greco-Roman world, but also ancient China and the European, Jewish and Arab inheritors and transmitters of classical thought. In recent years, work in this subject has been confined mostly to the discussion of texts that reflect an approach to the barbarian as ‘other’. The Routledge Handbook of Identity and the Environment in the Classical and Medieval Worlds takes the discussion of ethnicity on a fresh course, contextualising the concept of the barbarian within rational discourses such as cartography, medicine, and mathematical sciences, an approach that allows us to more clearly discern the varied and nuanced approaches to ethnic identity which abounded in antiquity. The innovative and thought-provoking material in this volume realises new directions in the study of identity in the Classical and Medieval worlds.