Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 34 • NUMBER 4
study of the hasidic tale, its history, its place in hasidic
society, and its importance for understanding the theology
and sociology of Hasidism. The first part of the book is a
bio-bibliographical study of the major authors who collected
and published the hasidic tales. Some of them were associ-
ated with the hasidic movement, and some were writers
whose motivations were more financial than spiritual. The
collections were often printed as chapbooks that appealed to
a more popular audience, even though they were written in
Hebrew. The second part of the book, constituting the bulk of
the work, collects and analyzes hasidic stories thematically.
Among the topics considered, are the hasidic tale as seen
internally by the hasidic movement, the zaddiq, and his rela-
tion to his followers and his opponents. Another major
theme is areas of life that the zaddiq was believed to have
the power to control like health, children, and livelihood. The
magical and supernatural worlds are also the domain of the
zaddiq, and stories about the zaddiq’s powers in this realm
are also analyzed. The book is enhanced with a very helpful
glossary, gazetteer of place names, bibliography, and index.
This is a pioneering work that will interest not only those
interested in Hasidism, but also students of folklore, popular
religion, and spirituality.
Morris M. Faierstein
Rockville, MD
ALCHEMY AND KABBALAH. By Gershom Scholem.
Translated from the German by Klaus Ottman. Putnam, CT:
Spring Publications, 2006. Pp. 110. $20.00.
Scholem wrote an article on Alchemy and Kabbalah at
the beginning of his scholarly career in 1925. He published
a revised and expanded version of that article a half
century later, at the end of his career, in the Eranos Year-
book 46 (1977). This small volume is an English translation
of the Eranos article. In the first part, Scholem considers
the relationship of medieval Kabbalah, particularly the
Zohar, to alchemy. He concludes that there are very few
similarities and those are primarily coincidental, while the
differences are great. For example, the zoharic schema of
sefirot and metals is different from the alchemical hierar-
chy. In the Zohar, silver is hesed, a sefirah that is higher
than din, which is identified with gold. The second part
considers Jewish scholars, primarily beginning in the late
fifteenth century in Italy, who evidenced an interest in
alchemy. For the most part, they were not kabbalists. L. de
Modena, for example, was very interested in alchemy and a
staunch opponent of Kabbalah. The most famous kabbalist
who also had a serious interest in alchemy was R. H. Vital,
a major kabbalist of the Safed revival. The last part dis-
cusses the relationship of alchemy and the Christian kab-
balists of the seventeenth century. Here too, the
relationship is ambiguous at best. This translation is a sig-
nificant contribution to the literature on the subject. It
would have been much more valuable if reference to the
significant studies published in the last thirty years
• DECEMBER 2008
touching on aspects of this work had been mentioned in
the footnotes.
Morris M. Faierstein
Rockville, MD
MESSIANIC MYSTICISM: MOSES HAYIM LUZ-
ZATTO AND THE PADUA SCHOOL. By Isaiah Tishby.
Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2008.
Pp. xxv + 578. $69.50.
Rabbi M. H. Luzzatto (1707-1746) was a prolific and
important author of poems, plays, and the most important
Jewish ethical treatise. Less well known and much more
controversial are his messianic aspirations and the circles of
disciples who gathered around him that actively attempted
to bring the Messiah. Luzzatto claimed that a magid, a heav-
enly messenger, was revealed to him and it brought him
mystical insights from heaven. He began to write a new
edition of the Zohar, the classic text of Jewish mysticism.
When these writings were discovered, it was decided that
they were heretical and he was ordered to cease, but was
expelled from Padua when he did not obey. He settled in
Amsterdam and eventually immigrated to Israel, where he
died. The messianic writings of Luzzatto and his disciples
were suppressed and remained in manuscript. The late
Isaiah Tishby, one of the major scholars of Kabbalah, discov-
ered some of these writings in the 1950s, and over the
course of the next thirty years published the writings of this
circle and analyzed them as he continued to find new manu-
scripts. This volume presents the fruits of Tishby’s research
in English translation. Luzzatto and his disciples lived in a
period of great cultural transition and the beginnings of
modernity. The writings of this group look forward to the
emerging ideas of the enlightenment, and at the same time
look back to earlier Jewish mystical movements like Sab-
bateanism. They offer a window into the minds of a group of
Jews who stood with one foot in the past and one in the future
that was just dawning.
Morris M. Faierstein
Rockville, MD
Judaism: Modern
ERASED: VANISHING TRACES OF JEWISH
GALICIA IN PRESENT-DAY UKRAINE. By Omer
Bartov. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Pp. xvii + 232, plates, maps. $26.95.
This fascinating book—part travelogue and part histori-
cal survey—describes the material remains of pre-war Jewish
life in twenty cities and towns of Western Ukraine, a region
once known as Galicia. Before the Holocaust, this region was
a vibrant center of Jewish life; today, hardly any Jews
remain. Bartov found (apparently in 2004) that relatively
little is being done by locals to preserve the memory of the
Jewish inhabitants of their towns and that the “traces” of
Jewish life were quickly vanishing. He compares this with
308
 Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 34
the current interest in the Jewish past in Germany, Poland,
and other European countries. He also discusses cases of
Ukrainian complicity in the Holocaust and claims that there
is a relative lack of self-examination of this topic in Ukraine
as compared with other countries. Bartov brings to the topic
a great deal of knowledge and insight regarding the Holo-
caust in Germany. However, though he clearly made valiant
efforts to master the Ukrainian language and the complexi-
ties of the Ukrainian past and present, he is less familiar
with those subjects. Thus, while this book effectively docu-
ments a contemporary reality of limited interest by locals in
the Jewish past of this region, it also shows the need for
further research on these topics.
Shaul Stampfer
Hebrew University
THE BOLDNESS OF AN HALAKHIST: AN ANALY-
SIS OF THE WRITINGS OF RABBI YECHIEL
MECHEL HALEVI EPSTEIN: THE ARUKH HASHUL-
HAN. By Simcha Fishbane. Boston: Academic Studies Press,
2008. Pp. xxii + 184. $55.00.
Epstein was a nineteenth century Lithuanian rabbi who
wrote a very influential summary of Jewish law, entitled
Arukh HaShulhan, that is regularly reprinted up until today.
The author of this volume terms it “a collection of social-
anthropological essays.” In fact, the nine chapters of this
book present important aspects of the Jewish legal world of
the nineteenth century to the modern reader. The book
opens with a long chapter on the life and works of Rabbi
Epstein. The author goes on to chapters dealing with
Epstein’s views on the Russian political system, the process
of arriving at legal decisions as reflected in Arukh Hashul-
han, the role and status of women, and his attitudes to vio-
lence, modernity, secular studies, and the place and
authority of custom. An appendix contains a rather curious
report on a graphologist’s analysis of Epstein’s handwriting.
Fishman writes clearly and concisely. He points out that
Epstein held many views that do not fit stereotypical views
of the past. This enables readers who know only English to
gain a nuanced picture of East European rabbinic attitudes.
The issues Fishman chose to deal with invite comparison
with other thinkers and other religious traditions, and this
adds to the utility of this very interesting volume.
Shaul Stampfers
Hebrew University
RABBINIC CULTURE AND ITS CRITICS: JEWISH
AUTHORITY, DISSENT AND HERESY IN MEDI-
EVAL AND EARLY MODERN TIMES. Edited by Daniel
Frank and Matt Goldish. Detroit: Wayne State University
Press, 2008. Pp. xv + 480. $49.95.
This fascinating and significant book, based on a 2001
conference at Ohio State University, is the first major collec-
tion of studies on dissent to rabbinic culture in the medieval
and early modern period. It contains fifteen studies, four of
which were previously published. It opens with a valuable
309
• NUMBER 4 • DECEMBER 2008
essay by the editors offering an overview of what rabbinic
culture is. Topics covered in the contributions include rab-
binic Judaism and its boundaries in the Middle Ages; Jews,
conversos, and heretics in the early modern period; and
Sabbateanism. The authors include some of the most
authoritative and original scholars writing in the field. The
result is rich and often surprising. The impressive scope
convincingly demolishes any preconception of a monolithic,
pre-modern Judaism, and the nature of the topic invites com-
parison with other groups and how they dealt with dissent.
The contents will clearly be required reading for many
topics. The volume itself is well edited and well indexed
which adds to the usefulness of this volume for nonexperts.
Shaul Stampfer
Hebrew University
REVOLUTION, REPRESSION, AND REVIVAL: THE
SOVIET JEWISH EXPERIENCE. Edited by Zvi Gitelman
and Yaacov Ro’i. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
Pp. xi + 406. $79.00.
Most of the articles in this volume were given at a con-
ference in Jerusalem in 2003, held in honor of M. Altshuler.
The authors include most of the leading scholars on Soviet
Jewry and hence the book gives a clear picture of the current
state of research in the field. Some of the articles, such as
those of A. Zeltser, Beizer, and Khanin among others, deal
explicitly and very perceptively with the fate and response of
Judaism to the revolution and to the realities of life under the
Soviet regime. However, even those that are not focused on
religious issues provide essential tools for understanding
the reasons for the long-term decline in Jewish observance
and religious identity in the USSR. The studies in this
volume are focused on key issues and they do not evade hard
questions. It is an excellent introduction to the study of
Soviet and post-Soviet Jewry in the twentieth century.
Shaul Stampfer
Hebrew University
THE MELLAH OF MARRAKESH: JEWISH AND
MUSLIM SPACE IN MOROCCO’S RED CITY. By Emily
Gottreich. Indiana Series in Middle East Studies. Blooming-
ton: Indiana Univ. Press, 2007. Pp. xiii + 201. $24.95.
Focusing on questions of intergroup relations and urban
space in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century
Marrakesh, Gottreich’s innovative study makes a significant
contribution to several intersecting fields including Middle
East studies, Jewish-Muslim relations, and urban studies.
This is a fascinating, thought-provoking examination of rela-
tions between Jews and Muslims in an urban setting in the
Arab world. The book’s substantive chapters examine the
formation of the traditional Jewish quarter of Marrakesh
(the Mellah), the central myths surrounding the Jewish dis-
trict of this city, the different roles that the ostensibly closed
Jewish quarter played in the lives of many of Marrakesh’s
Muslim residents, and the regularity with which Jews ven-
tured beyond the Mellah’s walls and into other parts of the
 Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 34
city. The end result is a fascinating analysis of the many
different ways that Jews and Muslims regularly interacted in
a city that was theoretically divided along religious and
ethnic lines. The book is both straightforward and creative in
a refreshing and accessible manner. Gottreich convincingly
demonstrates that the walls that were initially created to
divide Muslims and Jews did not separate members of these
two communities. The book is a wonderful example of how
different theoretical models and analytical tools can bring
new light to ostensibly well-researched subjects like rela-
tions between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East. The
fresh approach and strong arguments are sure to make it a
fine example of the joys of interdisciplinary research.
Scott Ury
Tel Aviv University
CONCEALMENT AND REVELATION: ESOTERI-
CISM IN JEWISH THOUGHT AND ITS IMPLICA-
TIONS. By Moshe Halbertal. Translated by Jackie Friedman.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xiv +
200. $29.95.
The first aim of Halbertal’s dense study is to present the
esoteric doctrines of the major figures of medieval Jewish
thought (such as I. Ezra, Maimonides, Nachmanides, and the
authors of the Zohar) as part of a larger medieval Jewish (and
Islamic) intellectual and cultural milieu that was engaged in
an intense debate over the value of various forms of wisdom
external to the religious tradition, and whether their study
should be restricted to an initiated elite, revealed to the
public, or permitted at all. The historical aspect of this study
focuses on the social and cultural implications of what Hal-
bertal calls the “esoteric paradox”; while esoteric doctrines
claim to restrict sacred knowledge in order to protect a reli-
gious tradition’s highest truths, their very secrecy can
license tremendous intellectual freedom and allow for the
integration of foreign ideas into the inner sanctum of a reli-
gious tradition. The book’s second aim is to use this histori-
cal lens to build a conceptual taxonomy of esoteric doctrines
and their political and philosophical implications. The final
chapter of the book summarizes this taxonomy in a master-
ful philosophical essay that contests Leo Strauss’ account of
the role of esotericism in the history of philosophy and its
implications for modern democratic discourse.
The book’s historical analysis will be challenging to
those unfamiliar with rabbinic literature, but the book is
otherwise free of scholarly jargon and can be accessed by a
wide readership interested in esoteric phenomena in the
history of religion.
William Plevan
Princeton University
THE POLYPHONY OF JEWISH CULTURE. By Ben-
jamin Harshav. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 2007.
Pp. vii + 285. $60.00.
Focusing on literary, cultural, and historical aspects of
Jewish life in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-
310
• NUMBER 4 • DECEMBER 2008
sscentury Eastern Europe, Benjamin Harshav’s collection of
essays is a masterful synthesis of in-depth studies of indi-
vidual figures that skillfully raises larger, thematic issues
related to the transformation of Jewish society and culture in
turn-of-the-century Eastern Europe. The book will be of much
interest to those working on Jewish and non-Jewish histories
and societies in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe,
as well as those interested in the intersection between
culture and history. It will also be extremely useful for those
searching for new, accessible material for undergraduate
courses on these and related topics. In addition to pathbreak-
ing essays on what Harshav calls “the Modern Jewish Revo-
lution” and Jewish multilingualism, the volume also includes
detailed chapters on specific figures that cover the seemingly
endless linguistic and ideological spectrum of East European
Jewry. In addition to moving accounts of Hebrew writers like
Agnon, N. Alterman, and Amichai, Harshav also offers keen
insights into the works of Yiddish authors like A. Sutzkever
in Tel Aviv and M. Halpern in New York, as well as the life of
Chagall in Vitebsk, St. Petersburg, Paris, Berlin, and Moscow.
In each of these cases, Harshav is careful not to lose sight of
the forest through the trees. The end result is a knowledge-
able, readable, and accessible set of essays that lend a sense
of intellectual order to the fascinating encounter of Jews in
turn-of-the-century Eastern Europe with the modern world.
Scott Ury
Tel Aviv University
HOW JEWS BECAME GERMANS: A HISTORY OF
CONVERSION AND ASSIMILATION IN BERLIN. By
Deborah Hertz. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
Pp. xii + 276. $38.00.
The story of conversion among early nineteenth-century
German Jews seeking “an entrance ticket to European civili-
zation,” as H. Heine famously put it, is a tale that has needed
to be told, and D. Hertz makes a compelling storyteller.
Despite the broad scope that the title suggests, Hertz focuses
primarily on the period from 1771 to 1833 (especially on the
spike in conversion after 1812) and on familiar elites, such as
R. Levin Varnhagen, E. Gans, and the children and grandchil-
dren of M. Mendelssohn. Nonetheless, Hertz presents a
complex analysis of the stakes of converting and remaining
within the fold by assessing perceptions of converts, their
opportunities to keep ties with those who remained Jews, and
the writings they themselves produced. She aims to illumi-
nate the multiple forces at work behind the often wrenching
decision to become baptized, both for individuals and for
broader sociological groupings (e.g., along lines of class and
gender). While pragmatic reasons—ambition, financial gain,
desire for social mobility and marital possibilities—are sig-
nificant in explaining why Jews converted, Hertz argues that
the role of Christian theology and, more often, romantic
concepts of German identity in bringing Jews to the baptis-
mal font should not be minimized. Within the Jewish com-
munity, conversion was particularly charged because of
agitation for reform of the character of Jewish religious at the
 Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 34
same time, and the perception that a reformed Judaism was
the only alternative to baptism. As she discusses in the
particularly thoughtful introduction, the shadow of the even-
tual Nuremberg laws, which classified Judaism as a tainted
ethnicity rather than as a religion, provides an orientation for
this study, the documents for which only exist because of the
obsessive genealogical interests of the Nazis.
Mara Benjamin
St. Olaf College
CONTESTED RITUALS: CIRCUMCISION, KOSHER
BUTCHERING, AND JEWISH POLITICAL LIFE IN
GERMANY, 1843-1933. By Robin Judd. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2007. Pp. xii + 283. $45.00.
Jewish rites of circumcision and kosher slaughter
provide the main vehicles for investigating the intersections
among different aspects of German and German-Jewish life
during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, but the
heart of Judd’s meticulously researched and complex analy-
sis is the last part of the subtitle: the development of Jewish
political life in Germany. She argues that these rites became
catalyzing forces in the development and maturation of
political organizing within the Jewish communities of
Germany as they struggled to defend their practices within
an often (but not always) hostile discursive terrain. Surpris-
ingly, the enfranchisement of Jews within broad political
debates parallels the waning of Jewish religious practice.
Judd examines how and why arguments against these par-
ticular Jewish ritual practices and the strategies Jewish
parties adopted in response shifted dramatically over the
course of the century. This study is part cultural history (in
Judd’s examination of the associative links in public dis-
course between Jews and blood/bloodletting and the role of
“debates about the compatibility of Jewish and German
culture”), part social history (for instance, in the substantia-
tion of the claim that “the Ritualfragen of 1867-1880 were
inventions of the middle class”), and part political history (in
Judd’s investigation of the role that the different orientations
by the municipal, regional, and state levels of government
over time were held). Taken together, it forms an impressive
and engaging study.
Mara Benjamin
St. Olaf College
CONTEMPORARY JEWISH PHILOSOPHY: AN
INTRODUCTION. By Irene Kajon. London and New York:
Routledge, 2006. Pp. 173. $180.00.
This slim volume offers treatments of H. Cohen, F.
Rosenzweig, M. Buber, L. Strauss, and E. Levinas. Although
each chapter is only between twenty and twenty-five pages
long, Kajon’s noble desire is to make her book something
more substantial than a reference volume that graduate stu-
dents might use to prepare for a comprehensive exam. Her
argument is that the canon of twentieth-century Jewish phi-
losophy is concerned first and foremost with “the moral data
of everyday life,” which places that canon counter to non-
311
• NUMBER 4 • DECEMBER 2008
Jewish interpretations of Kantian and post-Kantian rational-
ism. It is a fascinating argument, and this book is one of the
very few in the field of modern Jewish philosophy that is
secure enough to feel free to avoid common distinctions such
as holiness/profanity or authenticity/acculturation. Never-
theless, for the full power of this argument to be brought out,
a much longer text is required. This title is not suitable for
undergraduates, who would be thrown into dense thickets of
neo-Kantian thought fewer than fifteen pages in, but every
graduate library with collections in this subject area should
own this volume, despite its insanely expensive price tag of
over a dollar per page.
Martin Kavka
Florida State University
THE JEWS OF PINSK, 1506-1880. By Mordechai
Nadav. Edited by Mark Jay Mirsky and Moshe Rosman.
Translated by Moshe Rosman and Faigie Tropper. Stanford
Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stan-
ford University Press, 2008. Pp. xlviii + 606, plates, maps.
$75.00.
This exceptional volume was generally accepted as the
best history written of an East European Jewish community
when it appeared in 1973. This new translation is superb;
indeed, due to the careful editing and the patient reexami-
nation of all of the sources and references by Moshe Rosman,
it is even better than the original. Pinsk was a major Lithua-
nian Jewish community (now in Belarus). What makes this
volume important is the comprehensive picture it gives of all
aspects of Jewish life over a period of almost four centuries
and careful documentation. Religious issues receive great
attention and the descriptions of relations between Hasidim
and their opponents, for example, are a crucial revision of
simplistic stereotypes. There are also fascinating discus-
sions of the enlightenment movement in Pinsk and its oppo-
nents as well as of changing roles and personalities of the
rabbinate and rabbinic courts. Attention is also given to
demography, economics, social dynamics, communal life,
and much more. The translators took into account that
readers of the English edition are not familiar with the
details of East European Jewish life, and basic concepts are
introduced and explained. Quotations are translated and the
text is well indexed. This book should be required reading
for any serious study of East European Jewish religious and
cultural life as well as East European Jewish history in
general.
Shaul Stampfer
Hebrew University
CULTURE FRONT: REPRESENTING JEWS IN
EASTERN EUROPE. Edited by Benjamin Nathans and
Gabriella Safran. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia,
PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. Pp. viii + 323.
$65.00.
This volume focuses on aspects of the changing cul-
tural expression of East European Jewry from the seven-
 Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 34
teenth century until the twentieth. The topics covered
include the creation of the Jews’ self-image and a later
concern for civility, the social meaning of selected modern
popular literary texts, the politics and literary goals of
noted writers, and with ways of construction—a “modern
secular culture that engages the Jewish past.” This collec-
tion is certainly valuable as a reflection of contemporary
research on East European Jewish culture. However, since
underlying the topics of many of these papers is the
concern for recasting traditional self-definitions and values
in an increasingly secular environment, much of the
material in them could be used to reconstruct modernist
Jewish responses to religion and the process of seculariza-
tion. The volume is well indexed and very attractively
produced.
Shaul Stampfer
Hebrew University
THE CRYPTO-JEWISH MASHHADIS: THE
SHAPING OF RELIGOUS AND COMMUNAL IDEN-
TITY IN THEIR JOURNEY FROM IRAN TO NEW
YORK. By Hilda Nissimi. Brighton, East Sussex: Sussex
Academic Press, 2007. Pp. xv + 180. $67.50.
In 1839, the Jewish community of the holy Shiite city of
Mashhad in Iran (about 150 families) was attacked by a
mob; after the deaths of many Jews, the survivors converted
to Islam. However, they maintained a secret Jewish identity
over the generations even after leaving first for Tehran and
Israel and then the US. This story has been well docu-
mented, notably in R. Patai’s Jadid al-Islam. Nissimi’s
extremely absorbing and sophisticated study goes past the
events and deals with the ways this community maintained
identity. The book discusses the development of a “secret”
faith of these Jews, in light of similar responses among other
crypto-faith communities and how indeed identity was
maintained. The final section deals with the ways commu-
nity was maintained after it became possible to relocate and
to return to Judaism starting in the 1920s. At all stages,
Nissimi gives due attention to gender roles and to the sig-
nificant role of women in maintaining Jewish identity. The
scope, originality, depth of analysis, and the readability of
this book make it extremely useful not only for those inter-
ested in Jews and Jewish religion in Islamic lands but also
for comparative studies of religious roles of women, phe-
nomena such as marranism as well as links between reli-
gion and ethnicity.
Shaul Stampfer
Hebrew University
WOMEN REMAKING AMERICAN JUDAISM. Edited
by Riv-Ellen Prell. Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
2007. Pp. xii + 331. $25.95.
This collection of articles surveys three aspects of the
impact of feminism on American Judaism: theological/
textual innovation, ideological and practical shifts within
312
• NUMBER 4 • DECEMBER 2008
the major movements of contemporary Judaism, and the
development of feminist and women-oriented rituals both
within and outside of Jewish institutional life. Some surpris-
ing and insightful observations emerge from the essays,
which are almost uniformly excellent. Of particular interest
are a study of the role and impact of gender in M. Kaplan’s
shift from “commandment” to “folkway”, the tensions
between the historically progressive/protofeminist male
leadership within the reform movement and the Reform
laity, and analysis of the shift in emphasis from the subver-
sive and dangerous figure of Lilith to the respected but com-
paratively inoffensive figure of Miriam as the figurehead for
Jewish religious feminism. The trajectory resulting from the
intersection of the women’s movement of the early 1970s to
today’s American Judaism in some cases begins with
radical critique and gradually becomes more accommodat-
ing (and hence, more “successful”). However, the integra-
tion of feminism into some segments of religious Jewish life
also results in multivalence and ambiguity, for instance, in
the meaning of “Shekhina” (immanent aspect of the
Godhead) in Jewish renewal. These engaging articles
provide a much-needed reflection upon a crucial develop-
ment in twentieth- and early twenty-first-century American
Judaism.
Mara Benjamin
Yale University
RABBIS AND THEIR COMMUNITY: STUDIES IN
THE EASTERN EUROPEAN ORTHODOX RABBIN-
ATE IN MONTREAL 1896-1939. By Ira Robinson.
Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press, 2007. Pp. xi +
173. $34.95.
The dynamics of Canadian Jewish religious life are (and
were) quite different from those of their counterparts to the
south. Hence, an analysis of Canadian Jewish life proves
valuable both for understanding changes in Canadian Jewish
history as well as American Jewish history. What is excep-
tional about this book is the attention given, not to a specific
individual or political movement, but rather to the immi-
grant rabbinate as a whole in an important Jewish commu-
nity in a crucial period of adaptation to the “New World.”
Robinson offers vivid descriptions of the lives of Yiddish-
speaking rabbis. He deals not with theology but real life.
Readers who are familiar only with contemporary rabbinical
functions will learn a great deal from Robinson’s description
of the place of rabbinic supervision of kosher meat in the
activity and economy of rabbis at the beginning of the twen-
tieth century. Robinson smoothly weaves together printed
and archival sources with oral sources. It also should be
noted that the text is well written and the book attractively
produced. This original and significant book should be
important to any collection dealing with American Jewish
religious history.
Shaul Stampfer
Hebrew University
 Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 34
LITHUANIA AND RUTHENIA: STUDIES OF A
TRANSCULTURAL COMMUNICATION ZONE
(15TH-18TH CENTURIES). Edited by Stefan Rohdewald,
David Frick, Stefan Wiederkehr. Forschungen zur
osteuropäischen Geschichte vol. 71. Weisbaden (Germany):
Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007. Pp. 365; plates. 58€.
This volume contains fifteen studies that deal with
aspects of transcultural communication, broadly defined, in
early modern Lithuania and Ruthenia (now mostly part of
Ukraine). This was a contact zone between Catholicism and
(Jewish) Orthodoxy, and the region served as a fascinating
“laboratory” for the testing for hypotheses about the nature
and potential for interreligious and interethnic contacts.
Therefore, an understanding of religious issues is crucial to
understanding the place and the period (to this day). The
volume opens with a stimulating essay written by the editors
on the topic of transcultural communications, and the other
contributions deal with family issues, church relations, vio-
lence, and even art. Almost all of the contributions in this
volume deal with religious issues, especially with the con-
tacts and influences of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Judaism
with and on each other. About half of the articles are in
English and the rest are in German. Many are quite innova-
tive and creative. Unfortunately, there is no index nor are
there English summaries of the articles in German (nor vice
versa). Nonetheless, this book makes a valuable and sophis-
ticated addition to any serious research collection dealing
with Eastern Europe.
Shaul Stampfer
Hebrew University
A MURDER IN LEMBERG: POLITICS, RELIGION,
AND VIOLENCE IN MODERN JEWISH HISTORY. By
Michael Stanislawski. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2007. Pp. xiii + 147. $22.95.
Stanislawski’s book brings to light a hidden and dark
chapter in modern Jewish history: the murder of the Reform
Rabbi A. Kohn of Lemberg (Lvïv, Lwów) in 1848 by fellow
Jews. Using long overlooked archival sources from collec-
tions in contemporary Ukraine and Israel, Stanislawski
places Kohn’s murder within the context of the vituperative
debates over Jewish religious reform that took place in the
Jewish communities of Lemberg and throughout Austrian
Galicia in the middle of the nineteenth century. Kohn and his
platform of religious reform were vehemently opposed by
Orthodox Jewish opponents, some of whom decided to put a
halt to these plans by murdering the reforming rabbi.
Through an array of archival sources, Stanislawski recon-
structs the rabbi’s murder as well as the police investigation,
official trial, and public fallout surrounding the events. The
final result is a well-written, fervently argued study of reli-
gious reform, ideological conflict, and political violence in
one of the most important Jewish communities in the Haps-
burg Empire. Stanislawski places the entire affair within the
greater framework of internecine violence in modern Jewish
society and culture. This book will be of much interest and
313
• NUMBER 4 • DECEMBER 2008
use to those working on the history of Central Europe and of
religious fundamentalism. It will also be of much use to
those teaching courses on Judaism, Hapsburg history, and
religious extremism and violence.
Scott Ury
Tel Aviv University
BETWEEN FOREIGNERS AND SHI’IS:
NINETEENTH-CENTURY IRAN AND ITS JEWISH
MINORITY. By Daniel Tsadik. Stanford Studies in Jewish
History and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2007. Pp. xxi + 295; map. $60.00.
Rarely is a book essential reading both for understand-
ing nineteenth century religious history and for contempo-
rary politics. This fascinating and original book is one. D.
Tsadik, a young and gifted Israeli scholar, writes out of “love
for Iran and its people,” and succeeds in presenting a very
complicated topic clearly and in a balanced manner. In doing
so, he overturns many stereotypes about tolerance and intol-
erance in Shiite Islam. Among the issues covered are the
inferior status of Jews in traditional Shiite legal thought,
elements that encouraged change in the status of Jews, the
role of foreign influence that led to change, the limited effec-
tiveness of these changes, and opposition to improvements
in the status of Jews. The book closes with a conclusion that
places the Jews in the context of other minority groups in
Iran. As a whole, the book also goes a long way towards
explaining Shiite attitudes to Jewish today. For readers unfa-
miliar with Jewish life in Iran, this carefully documented
study describes not only an unknown world but clarifies
many issues dealing with religious conflict in general, and
anti-Semitism in particular, that invite comparison with
other times and places. The glossary and clear style take the
nonspecialist reader into consideration. This significant and
unique book is equally important for understanding Shiite
Islam as it is for understanding Iranian Judaism, and it
should attract many readers.
Shaul Stampfer
Hebrew University
Islam
MAKING ISLAM DEMOCRATIC: SOCIAL MOVE-
MENTS AND THE POST-ISLAMIST TURN. By Asef
Bayat. Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Soci-
eties and Cultures. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
2007. Pp. xxi + 291. Cloth, $55.00; paper, $21.95.
In this nuanced study, Bayat complicates the simplistic
question of whether “Islam” and “democracy” are compat-
ible. He argues convincingly that it is Muslims who animate
Islam as a lived religion, and speaking about the “essence” of
Islam is of little use. Ideological critics of Islam and many
Muslim apologists base their views of “Islam” on a literal
reading of sacred texts and history, ignoring the fact that
these sources are subject to multiple interpretations. Bayat