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Pioneering the study of Jewish mysticism as a legitimate academic discipline, he overturned the rationalist bias of his predecessors and revealed an extraordinary world of myth and messianism. In his youth, he rebelled against the assimilationist culture of his parents and embraced Zionism as the vehicle for the renewal of Judaism in a secular age. He moved to Palestine in 1923 and participated in the creation of the Hebrew University, where he was a towering figure for nearly seventy years.   David Biale traces Scholem’s tumultuous life of political activism and cultural criticism, including his falling-out with Hannah Arendt over the Eichmann trial. Mining a rich trove of diaries, letters, and other writings, Biale shows that his subject’s inner life illuminates his most important writings. Scholem emerges as a passionately engaged man of his times—a period that encompassed two world wars, the rise of Nazism, and the Holocaust.   About Jewish Lives:    Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present.   In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award.   More praise for Jewish Lives:   \"Excellent\" –New York Times   \"Exemplary\" –Wall Street Journal   \"Distinguished\" –New Yorker   \"Superb\" –The Guardian","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49503985828113,"sku":"GOR013082566","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49795443327249,"sku":"CIN0300215908VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51328837288209,"sku":"CIN0300215908G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0300215908.jpg?v=1751356431"},{"product_id":"gershom-scholem-kabbalah-and-counter-history-book-david-biale-9780674363304","title":"Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah and Counter History","description":"\u003cp\u003e Through a lifetime of passionate scholarship, Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) uncovered the domains of tradition hidden under the debris of centuries and made the history of Jewish mysticism and messianism comprehensible and relevant to current Jewish thought. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e In this paperback edition of his definitive book on Scholem's work, David Biale has shortened and rearranged his study for the benefit of the general reader and the student. 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How do they resemble and how do they differ from Jews in other places and times? What have their relationships been to the cultures of their neighbors? To address these and similar questions, some of the finest scholars of our day have contributed their insights to \u003ci\u003eCultures of the Jews\u003c\/i\u003e, a winner of the National Jewish Book Award upon its hardcover publication in 2002. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eConstructing their essays around specific cultural artifacts that were created in the period and locale under study, the contributors describe the cultural interactions among different Jews-from rabbis and scholars to non-elite groups, including women-as well as between Jews and the surrounding non-Jewish world. What they conclude is that although Jews have always had their own autonomous traditions, Jewish identity cannot be considered the fixed product of either ancient ethnic or religious origins. 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It goes on to discuss Jewish cultures in the Greco-Roman world, Palestine during the Byzantine period, Babylonia, and Arabia during the formative years of Islam.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Part Two, \"Diversities of Diaspora,\" illuminates Judeo-Arabic culture in the Golden Age of Islam, Sephardic culture as it bloomed first if the Iberian Peninsula and later in Amsterdam, the Jewish-Christian symbiosis in Ashkenazic Europe and in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the culture of the Italian Jews of the Renaissance period, and the many strands of folklore, magic, and material culture that run through diaspora Jewish history.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Part Three, \"Modern Encounters,\" examines communities, ways of life, and both high and fold culture in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, the Ladino Diaspora, North Africa and the Middle East, Ethiopia, Zionist Palestine and the State of Israel, and, finally, the United States.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eCultures of the Jews\u003c\/i\u003e is a landmark, representing the fruits of the present generation of scholars in Jewish studies and offering a new foundation upon which all future research into Jewish history will be based. 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To address these and similar questions, some of the finest scholars of our day have contributed their insights to \u003ci\u003eCultures of the Jews\u003c\/i\u003e, a winner of the National Jewish Book Award upon its hardcover publication in 2002. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eConstructing their essays around specific cultural artifacts that were created in the period and locale under study, the contributors describe the cultural interactions among different Jews-from rabbis and scholars to non-elite groups, including women-as well as between Jews and the surrounding non-Jewish world. What they conclude is that although Jews have always had their own autonomous traditions, Jewish identity cannot be considered the fixed product of either ancient ethnic or religious origins. 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