From King David to David ben Gurion, via Jesus, Freud and more - the lives, ideas and influence of seven radical Jews - what they did, what they believed in and their contribution to Judaism. Courageous, challenging and misunderstood, they left a lasting legacy for both Jews and the wider world. Their insights and experiences can help tackle contemporary moral and political challenges. This book has in-depth separate chapters on a range of characters, presented in an easy-to-read bullet point format. Each chapter gives a summary of a character's life, personality, beliefs and contribution to Judaism. King David - Warrior, leader, sinner, lover Jesus - The founder of a new movement within Judaism Abraham Ibn Ezra - Radical writer and thinker of the Middle Ages Moses Mendelssohn - 18th century German philosopher and instigator of Jewish enlightenment Sigmund Freud - The founder of psychoanalysis Leo Baeck - Leader of German Jewry in the 1930s David Ben-Gurion - First Prime Minister of Israel

The lives, ideas and influence of ten audacious Jews - what they did, what they believed and their contribution to the Jewish story. Courageous, challenging and often misunderstood, they left a lasting legacy for humanity. This book has a chapter on each character, in an easy-to-read bullet point format, which gives a summary of a character's life, personality, beliefs and contribution to Judaism. Jacob - The most successful biblical patriarch Naomi - The heroine of the biblical Book of Ruth King Solomon - The second monarch of Judah and Israel Akiva ben Yosef - The leading 1st century Rabbi and martyr Theodor Herzl - The journalist, writer and inspiration of modern political Zionism Franz Kafka - A literary genius of the 20th century Marc Chagall - The most famous Jewish artist of the 20th century Golda Meir - Israel's fourth Prime Minister Isaiah Berlin - The liberal philosopher and one of the finest minds of the 20th century Leonard Bernstein - The American composer, conductor and pianist

The lives, ideas and influence of ten audacious Jews - what they did, what they believed and their contribution to the Jewish story. Courageous, challenging and often misunderstood, they left a lasting legacy for humanity. This book has a chapter on each character, in an easy-to-read bullet point format, which gives a summary of a character's life, personality, beliefs and contribution to Judaism. Judah - Son of Jacob, brother of Joseph Rashi - Medieval French commentator Baruch Spinoza - Radical 17th century thinker The Rothschilds - 19th century bankers and philanthropists Benjamin Disraeli - 19th century British Prime Minister Karl Marx - Revolutionary 19th century economist and socialist Martin Buber - 20th century philosopher, Zionist and philosopher Albert Einstein - Brilliant physicist, an avowed pacifist and Zionist Abraham Joshua Heschel - 20th century rabbi and a model for compassionate social action Louis Jacobs - Britain's most prolific rabbi and its only world class scholar

The lives, ideas and influence of ten audacious Jews - what they did, what they believed and their contribution to the Jewish story. Courageous, challenging and often misunderstood, they left a lasting legacy for humanity. This book has a chapter on each character, in an easy-to-read bullet point format, which gives a summary of a character's life, personality, beliefs and contribution to Judaism. Moses - The leader of the Biblical Israelites. Paul of Tarsus - 1st century Jew who helped create Christianity Maimonides - The most important medieval Jewish scholar Gracia Mendes Nasi - Medieval businesswoman and philanthropist Moses Montefiore - 19th century British financier and philanthropist Henrietta Szold - Zionist, founder of Hadassah and a leading force in social welfare Chaim Weizmann - Zionist, chemist and the first President of Israel Leon Trotsky - Marxist leader, revolutionary and writer Primo Levi - An Italian survivor from Auschwitz Leonard Cohen - Canadian poet and singer

The Posen Library's groundbreaking anthology series—called "a feast of Jewish culture, in ten volumes" by The Chronicle of Higher Education—offers with Volume 1 an exploration of the culture of ancient Israel, including its literature, legal documents, and visual arts "Readers seeking primary texts, documents, images, and artifacts constituting Jewish culture and civilization will not be disappointed. More important, they might even be inspired. . . . This set will serve to improve teaching and research in Jewish studies at institutions of higher learning and, at the same time, promote, maintain, and improve understanding of the Jewish population and Judaism in general."—Booklist, Starred Review The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 1, covers the earliest period of Jewish civilization, from the second millennium BCE through 332 BCE. Organized by genre, this book presents a collection of some of the earliest products of Jewish culture, including extensive selections from the Tanakh and the Hebrew Bible; extrabiblical inscriptions and documents by and about Israelites and Jews, found by archaeologists in the lands of Israel, Egypt, and Mesopotamia; and images representing the visual culture of ancient Israel. Combining genres that have never been presented together in a single publication, Volume 1 illustrates ancient Israel’s cultural innovations and commonalities with neighboring societies.

School vouchers. The Pledge of Allegiance. The ban on government grants for theology students. The abundance of church and state issues brought before the Supreme Court in recent years underscores an incontrovertible truth in the American legal system: the relationship between the state and religion in this country is still fluid and changing. This, the first of two volumes by historian and legal scholar James Hitchcock, provides the first comprehensive exploration of the Supreme Court's approach to religion, offering a close look at every case, including some that scholars have ignored. Hitchcock traces the history of the way the Court has rendered important decisions involving religious liberty. Prior to World War II it issued relatively few decisions interpreting the Religious Clauses of the Constitution. Nonetheless, it addressed some very important ideas, including the 1819 Dartmouth College case, which protected private religious education from state control, and the Mormon polygamy cases, which established the principle that religious liberty was restricted by the perceived good of society. It was not until the 1940s that a revolutionary change occurred in the way the Supreme Court viewed religion. During that era, the Court steadily expanded the scope of religious liberty to include many things that were probably not intended by the framers of the Constitution, and it narrowed the permissible scope of religion in public life, barring most kinds of public aid to religious schools and forbidding almost all forms of religious expression in the public schools. This book, along with its companion volume, From "Higher Law" to "Sectarian Scruples," offers a fresh analysis of the Court's most important decisions in constitutional doctrine. Sweeping in range, it paints a detailed picture of the changing relationship between religion and the state in American history.