Books in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America S. series

How have modern Jews appropriated traditional aspects of their culture and religion to sustain them in the modern world? Twenty-one distinguished scholars address this question by drawing on a range of disciplines, including social and cultural history, ethnography, folklore and sociology.

This text on the history of Galilee between the 1st and 7th centuries contains 20 essays examining such issues as the first Christians, social and economic conditions, Roman rule and military presence, rabbis and Jewish law, languages and the archaeological remains of ancient synagogues.

In recent years, gender studies and feminist thinking have had a growing influence on the study of world literature. But only noe, in this volume, is a range of studies devoted to the field of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature. Here international scholars bring a diversity of approaches, perspectives, and themes to the works of women writers and to the representations of women in writing by men. Among the many writers discussed in the book are Esther Raab, Yocheved Bat Miriam, Celia Dropkin, Hayyim Nahman Bialik, A.B. Yehoshua, and Ahron Appelfeld. In addition, three women novelists write about thier own craft. Annotated bibliographies provide strong guidance for future research into gender issues.

This work studies the interplay of figurative language, law and religious thought in the Bible and Near Eastern cultures. Topics covered include: love and joy as metaphors; the laws of war in ancient Israel; and the figurative nature of legal language.