Academic Studies Press

Edited by Maxim D. Shrayer, a leading specialist in Russia’s Jewish culture, this definitive anthology of major nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, nonfiction and poetry by eighty Jewish-Russian writers explores both timeless themes and specific tribulations of a people’s history. A living record of the rich and vibrant legacy of Russia’s Jews, this reader-friendly and comprehensive anthology features original English translations. In its selection and presentation, the anthology tilts in favor of human interest and readability. It is organized both chronologically and topically (e.g. “Seething Times: 1860s-1880s”; “Revolution and Emigration: 1920s-1930s”; “Late Soviet Empire and Collapse: 1960s-1990s”). A comprehensive headnote introduces each section. Individual selections have short essays containing information about the authors and the works that are relevant to the topic. The editor’s opening essay introduces the topic and relevant contexts at the beginning of the volume; the overview by the leading historian of Russian Jewry John D. Klier appears the end of the volume. Over 500,000 Russian-speaking Jews presently live in America and about 1 million in Israel, while only about 170,000 Jews remain in Russia. The great outflux of Jews from the former USSR and the post-Soviet states has changed the cultural habitat of world Jewry. A formidable force and a new Jewish Diaspora, Russian Jews are transforming the texture of daily life in the US and Canada, and Israel. A living memory, a space of survival and a record of success, Voice of Jewish-Russian Literature ensures the preservation and accessibility of the rich legacy of Russian-speaking Jews.

The three novellas of Farewell, Aylis take place over decades of transition in a country that rather resembles modern-day Azerbaijan.

In Yemen, a Soviet traveler takes an afternoon stroll and finds himself suspected of defecting to America. In Stone Dreams, an actor explores the limits of one man’s ability to live a moral life amid conditions of sociopolitical upheaval, ethnic cleansing, and petty professional intrigue. In A Fantastical Traffic Jam, those who serve the aging leader of a corrupt, oil-rich country scheme to stay alive. 

Farewell, Aylis, a new essay by the author that reflects on the political firestorm surrounding these novellas and his current situation as a prisoner of conscience in Azerbaijan, was commissioned especially for this Academic Studies Press edition.

The Jew in Medieval Iberia is an exploration of the richness and diversity of Jewish society in Christian Iberia from 1100-1500, providing a fresh look at the ways in which medieval Jews conceived of themselves and their communities, as well as their relationship to the surrounding society. The essays collected in this volume transcend older stereotypes of Christian persecution and Jewish piety to reveal a complex and vibrant community of merchants and scholars, townsmen and women, cultural intermediaries and guardians of religious tradition. Taken together, they present a portrait that adds greater nuances to our understanding of both medieval Jewish and medieval Spanish history.

In his captivating new book, based on new evidence and a series of interviews, author and scholar Maxim D. Shrayer offers a richly journalistic portrait of Russia’s dwindling yet still vibrant and influential Jewish community. 

This is simultaneously an in-depth exploration of the texture of Jewish life in Putin’s Russia and an émigré’s moving elegy for Russia’s Jews, which forty years ago constituted one of the world’s largest Jewish populations and which presently numbers only about 180,000. Why do Jews continue to live in Russia after the antisemitism and persecution they had endured there? What are the prospects of Jewish life in Russia? What awaits the children born to Jews who have not left? With or Without You asks and seeks to answer some of the central questions of modern Jewish history and culture.

Throughout history, Judaism has been under attack by other religions, attacks which strengthened the identification of the group as a whole. Modern challenges, however, are coming from different directions, and are producing different results. Jewish identification is declining at the same time as more and more Jewish groups to identify with are rising. Rather than being a disaster, Kaplan argues that the multiplicity of threads in Jewish life today represents the process of a radical transformation “nothing less than metamorphosis.” It is in this way that Judaism is creating its own future, the greater Judaism in the making.

This volume contains fifteen articles, many in Hebrew, by leading scholars. The articles cover a broad range of subjects, from an analysis of biblical narratives as expounded in the midrash and by medieval commentators, through a discussion of Maimonides’ attitude towards midrash and an analysis of talmudic aggadah as expounded by oriental scholars, to polemics concerning the attitude to aggadah in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, and culminating with an analysis of interpretation of aggadah by latter-day talmudic scholars. There are also articles about the essence of aggadah, its literary conventions and its relation to law, and two articles which deal with a passage in the Passover Haggadah. The participants include: E. Eizenman, N. Ilan, G. Blidstein, Y. Blau, M. Bregman, A. Grossman, H. Davidson, C. Horowitz, O. Viskind-Elper, H. Mak, A. Atzmon, A. Kadari, A. Rozenak, M. Shmidman, and J. Tabory.

The second of a three-volume series, this book contains Eva Jospe’s Moses Mendelssohn: Selections from His Writings, together with an article dealing with Mendelssohn’s enduring significance. As Raphael Jospe observes in his introduction to the volume, despite the welcome growth in recent years in the availability of English translations of Mendelssohn’s works, Eva Jospe’s Selections (including some of Mendelssohn’s private letters) remain valuable for their clarity, for the logic of their organization, and for the important insight they provide into Mendelssohn’s personality and convictions. Volume One of this series contains Eva Jospe’s study of the “Concept of Encounter in the Philosophy of Martin Buber,” and Volume Three her Reason and Hope: Selections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann Cohen. Together, these volumes offer a multidimensional view of Jospe’s work and thoughts.

Asher Ginsberg (1856-1927), also known as Ahad Ha-Am, was a prominent pre-state Zionist thinker and considered the founder of Cultural Zionism, fighting for what he described as “a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews.” This 1912 collection of essays, translated by Leon Simon, expresses his philosophy and beliefs on Zionism and other Jewish topics, helping the reader build an understanding of Ahad Ha-Am and his era.

This volume of original essays, by some of Israel’s most remarkable public and academic voices, offers a series of state-of-the art, accessible analyses of Israel’s ever-evolving theater of statecraft, public debates, and legal and cultural dramas, its deep divisions and—more surprisingly, perhaps—its internal affinities and common denominators. Contributors: Fania Oz-Salzberger, Yedidia Z. Stern, Ayman K. Agbaria, Aviad Bakshi, Ariel L. Bendor, Ruth Gavison, Michael M. Karayanni, David Passig, Avi Sagi, Gideon Sapir, Anita Shapira, Daniel Statman, Gadi Taub, Shira Wolosky, Alexander Yakobson, Yaffa Zilbershats.

Two basic approaches have shaped the identity discourse since antiquity. The essentialist view assumes that a person's identity does exist "somewhere," and the discourse on identity is an attempt to disclose it. People do not create their identity, they only realize it. The opposite, deconstructionist view, assumes that the identity is only a linguistic fiction; we have no identity outside our concrete history, which reflects a constantly ongoing dynamic change. The present book offers a third option. It accepts that identity is not a priori datum that precedes our existence but claims we do have a set historical cultural identity it calls "primary," expressing a permanent foundation of our biography. On its basis, we build our concrete identity. Engaging in a critical analysis, the book exposes the foundations and the borders of the identity field. As a test case that illustrates its claims, it presents the discourse on Jewish identity. Lively, vigorous, and widely recorded, this discourse conveys many nuances of the tension between continuity and change and is thus uniquely fit to convey the significance of the identity discourse.

This groundbreaking book was among the most important of those that presented the teachings of Maimonides, as represented by his many published works, as a unified whole, thus bringing about a renaissance in the study of this seminal scholar. The author, the Reverend Abraham Cohen, states in his original introduction that “the spirit which animated [Maimonides’] mind and pervades his writings is as much needed now as ever before.” Academic Studies Press is proud to make this important work once again available in printed form.

This volume contributes to the growing field of comparative Jewish and American law, presenting twenty-six essays characterized by a number of distinct features. The essays will appeal to legal scholars and, at the same time, will be accessible and of interest to a more general audience of intellectually curious readers. These contributions are faithful to Jewish law on its own terms, while applying comparative methods to offer fresh perspectives on complex issues in the Jewish legal system. Through careful comparative analysis, the essays also turn to Jewish law to provide insights into substantive and conceptual areas of the American legal system, particularly areas of American law that are complex, controversial, and unsettled.

This volume contributes to the growing field of comparative Jewish and American law, presenting twenty-six essays characterized by a number of distinct features. The essays will appeal to legal scholars and, at the same time, will be accessible and of interest to a more general audience of intellectually curious readers. These contributions are faithful to Jewish law on its own terms, while applying comparative methods to offer fresh perspectives on complex issues in the Jewish legal system. Through careful comparative analysis, the essays also turn to Jewish law to provide insights into substantive and conceptual areas of the American legal system, particularly areas of American law that are complex, controversial, and unsettled.

This book discusses the development of practices associated with customs and artifacts used in Jewish ceremonies when viewed from the vantage of anthropological studies. It can also function as a guide to practical halakhah. The author examines topics such as Torah Scrolls, ceremonial use of fire, Purim customs, the festival of Shavuot, magic and superstition. This investigation, at times, compares some Jewish observances with the wider cultural observances or notions of the broader, gentile societies in which Jews were located when these customs originated. It is found that the time and location of a practice’s origin is often critical to appreciating a shared context. In all cases the Jewish practice becomes reinterpreted within a specifically Jewish narrative and legal structure.

This volume of original essays, by some of Israel’s most remarkable public and academic voices, offers a series of state-of-the art, accessible analyses of Israel’s ever-evolving theater of statecraft, public debates, and legal and cultural dramas, its deep divisions and—more surprisingly, perhaps—its internal affinities and common denominators. Contributors: Fania Oz-Salzberger, Yedidia Z. Stern, Ayman K. Agbaria, Aviad Bakshi, Ariel L. Bendor, Ruth Gavison, Michael M. Karayanni, David Passig, Avi Sagi, Gideon Sapir, Anita Shapira, Daniel Statman, Gadi Taub, Shira Wolosky, Alexander Yakobson, Yaffa Zilbershats.

The Horizontal Society is an exposition of rabbinic thought as exemplified by Maimonides. The thought streams of Greece, Rome, and Christendom serve as a contrast. This work is in the Hebrew rhetorical tradition of melisa. The main text in five sections-—The God of Israel, The Books of Israel, The Governance of Israel, The Memory of Israel, and The Folly of Israel—focuses on these core matters. It includes numerous references to orient the reader. The mode is similar to the author's previous work, such as Golden Doves with Silver Dots: Semiotics and Textuality in Rabbinic Tradition, interacting with the latest thought from today's academy. This book illustrates the horizontal organization of the Jewish people. Other social organization is based on hierarchy. Two principles made this difference possible for Israel. First, the Hebrew Scriptures alone propose that every human being is created in the image of God. This necessitates the absolute equality of every human being. Second, the Sinai covenant establishes the Law as the supreme authority. Whereas in other societies, might is the source of authority, in Judaism authority is limited by the Law. These principles were summarized by the last Prophet of Israel: "Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously…, profaning the covenant of our fathers?" (Mal 2:10). There is a subdivided bibliography of forty pages, including both Jewish and "Western" sources. The scholarly apparatus includes indices of terms, names, and subjects. There are also seventy appendices of interest to rabbinic readership.

This volume seeks to understand more about the lives and histories of the general population of the Republic of Turkey during the years 1928 and 1945. During this period, concepts of Turkish nationalism were expounded in a top-down effort to rally the population to be united as Turks. Being a top-down effort, there needed to be mechanisms through which to transmit these concepts to the general population. This work assesses the level to which authors of indigenous Turkish detective fiction written between 1928 and 1945 attempted to aid in this process of transmission. Five series of this period are carefully analysed; the clear conclusion is that there was authorial intent to spread ideas of “Turkism” in each and every series.

The Tel Aviv annual Purim celebrations were the largest public events in British Palestine, and they played a key role in the development of the urban Jewish experience in the Promised Land. Carnival in Tel-Aviv presents a historical-anthropological analysis of this mass public event and explores the ethnographic dimension of Zionism. This study sheds new light on the ideological world of urban Zionism, the capitalistic aspects of Zionist culture, and the urban nature of the Zionist project, which sought to create a nation of warriors and farmers, but in fact nationalized the urban space and constructed it as its main public sphere.

Faith: Jewish Perspectives explores important questions in both modern and premodern Jewish philosophy regarding the idea of faith. Is believing a voluntary action, or do believers find themselves within the experience of faith against their will? Can faith be understood through other means (psychological, epistemic, and so forth), or is it only comprehensible from the inside, that is, from within the religious world? Is a subjective experience of faith fundamentally communicative, meaning that it includes intelligible and transmittable universal elements, or is it a private experience that we can point to or talk about through indirect means (poetic, lyrical, and so forth), but never fully decipher? This book presents various manifestations of the concept of faith in Judaism as a tradition engaged in a dialogue with the outside world. It will function as an opening and an invitation to an ongoing conversation with faith.