Exile and the Jews

Save 40% off this volume with coupon code 6AS24. Save 50% off when you purchase 10 or more copies with coupon code 6EXILE50. April 2024 Association of Jewish Libraries 2025 Reference and Bibliography Awards – Reference Honorable Mention This first comprehensive anthology examining Jewish responses to exile from the biblical period to our modern day gathers texts from all genres of Jewish literary creativity to explore how the realities and interpretations of exile have shaped Judaism, Jewish politics, and individual Jewish identity for millennia. Ordered along multiple arcs—from universal to particular, collective to individual, and mythic-symbolic to prosaic everyday living—the chapters present different facets of exile: as human condition, in history and life, in holiday rituals, in language, as penance and atonement, as internalized experience, in relation to the Divine Presence, and more. By illuminating the multidimensional nature of “exile”—political, philosophical, religious, psychological, and mythological—widely divergent evaluations of Jewish life in the Diaspora emerge. The word “exile” and its Hebrew equivalent, galut, evoke darkness, bleakness—and yet the condition offers spiritual renewal and engenders great expressions of Jewish cultural creativity: the Babylonian Talmud, medieval Jewish philosophy, Golden Age poetry, and modern Jewish literature. Exile and the Jews will engage students, academics, and general readers in contemplating immigration, displacement, evolving identity, and more. Praise “Carefully researched and beautifully presented to create cross-generational conversations, moving from universal and existential to collective Jewish expressions of the diasporic condition, Exile and the Jews is accessible to the general reader as well as providing an invaluable resource for the student or scholar of Jewish studies.”—Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, author of Booking Passage: Exile and Homecoming in the Modern Jewish Imagination “I enthusiastically endorse this fascinating anthology as a textbook for higher education.”—Rifat Sonsino, rabbi emeritus, Temple Beth Shalom, Needham, Massachusetts, and author of Modern Judaism “The selection of texts reflects remarkable erudition with deep familiarity with the Hebrew Bible and Jewish liturgy as well as the diversity of voices in the modern intellectual world. Entrenched in this background, the choice to bring together in conversation, under each section, texts that are historically and culturally distinct provokes insights on the topic. This choice makes the collection a stimulating resource for researchers and teachers…”—Yael Almog, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies “In their superb new collection of primary documents, ranging from biblical texts to modern Hebrew literature, Exile and the Jews, Nancy Berg and Marc Saperstein present a range of Jewish understandings of the exilic condition, from the political to the theological. The texts are well-chosen and the comments from the editors situate them masterfully. “–Susannah Heschel for the Society of Biblical Literature’s Review of Biblical Literature