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Judaism without God?: Judaism as Culture, Bible as
Literature, by Yaakov Malkin
The Library of Secular Judaism and Milan Press, 336 pp., translation by Shmuel Gertel of: Yahaduth Lelo El? Yahaduth Ketarbut – Tanakh Kesifrut, Keter Books in 2003 (2nd edition in 2005).
The book takes a look - from a secular perspective – at Judaism as the culture of the Jewish People; a culture that comprises both secular and religious cultures. The central theme of the book is thus that Judaism is not a religion, like Christianity or Islam (which are religions of various peoples and play a role in diverse national cultures), but the culture of a single people, made up of numerous Jewish cultures.
Jewish cultures are influenced by the cultures within which they develop, and upon which they in turn exert an influence - hence the pluralism that has characterised Judaism throughout its history; from its inception in biblical times, to the Modern Era.
Majority of Jews today live within secular culture (i.e. do not observe the religious precepts, do not attend or belong to a synagogue, do not send their children to religious schools). Since the 17th century, this culture has produced tens of thousands of secular Jewish works of literature, philosophy, scholarship, plastic and performance art – in Hebrew, Jewish languages such as Yiddish, and the languages of all of the lands in which Jews have lived. Secular Jewish scholarship, literature and art have shed new light on the culture of the Jewish People, as it has developed for over three thousand years.
This book presents Judaism as a pluralistic culture in all eras: comprising many religions (both monotheistic and pagan) in the biblical era; diverging into Jewish Hellenistic and Jewish Rabbinical (Talmudic) culture in the Hellenistic-Byzantine era; comprising clashing streams - Rabbinical, Karaite, mystical, rationalistic and messianic - in the Middle Ages; and splitting into secular and religious cultures - including Reform, hassidic, Conservative and kabbalistic - in the Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment
How is pluralism characteristic of Judaism as culture? What unites all “Judaisms” in a single national culture? In what way are the various Judaisms – including Israeli and diaspora Judaisms, Judaisms of the present and the past, secular and religious Judaisms - more similar than dissimilar? What role does the Bible play in contemporary culture? How has belief in the biblical Yahweh changed – from belief in a creator and ruler of the universe to belief in a literary figure that lives on in modern secular language and culture?
The author suggests answers to all of these questions – presenting the Bible as the only core element common to all of Judaism’s Judaisms; an anthology of the classical and founding literature of Jewish national culture, as well as an important part of other western national cultures. The book discusses the roles that biblical literature has played and continues to play in the culture of the Jewish People, particularly in the secular Jewish culture that has developed, in the language of the Bible, in Israel over the past century.
Distribution:
Dr. Efraim Zadoff
E.D.Z. Nativ Ediciones
Fax: 972 2 5860829
P.O.Box 23526, Jerusalem 91234
zadoff@zahav.net.il
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